“The greatest threat that Jayawardene saw to his survival was the well-established electoral system in Sri Lanka. He declared the right of people to elect their government at periodic elections as the reason that countries of instability.”.....................................
By Citizen Somapala
(January 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) When a grandson of JR Jayawardene appears in newsprint to talk about politics, one would think that this was to make an apology for the colossal destruction to the political system that his grandfather caused. Instead, the grandson, Pradeep Jayawardene, took it upon himself to advise the Sri Lankan electorate about who to vote for in the present election without any reference to the enormous destruction caused by his grandfather, whose sole ambition was to close down the electoral map.
We are not interested in his personal views about whom people should vote for - that of course, is the right of anyone - we are only commenting on the title under which he has been introduced by newspapers, which give him special place to advise on these matters as the grandson of former president JR Jayawardene.
A key issue in the present election is the abolition of the executive presidential system created by JR Jayawardene. He created this position solely for his own benefit. Creating a tailor-made Constitution, giving himself powers that were available only to absolute monarchs, President Jayawardene made a mockery of the Sri Lankan political system.
Even the only living close associate of Jayawardene, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is at the forefront in calling for the abolition of this system. It was this issue that a person who is speaking under the title of ‘grandson’ should have first spoken about, if he wished to give sincere advice to the people of his country,
The issue of the closing of the electorate and the denial of the electoral rights of the people necessitated JR Jayawardene to keep a situation of complete unrest in all parts of the country: the south, the north and the east. Senseless bloodshed that was the hallmark of the years of his rule was the result of the very politics of a man who wanted to survive in his position at the cost of denying electoral rights to his people. This was the president who declared himself to be president, even though he was only elected as a member of parliament for a particular seat in Colombo. He declared himself to be president, destroyed the entire parliamentary system and the independence of the judiciary, in the name of his own personal survival.
The greatest threat that Jayawardene saw to his survival was the well-established electoral system in Sri Lanka. He declared the right of people to elect their government at periodic elections as the reason that countries of instability . Displacing this system in a way that he could survive without elections was his ambition. Since this was not completely achievable, he introduced violence into the elections, and the type of electoral fraud that has developed in the Sri Lankan electoral system was of his own design.
Manipulating the capacities of his colleague, then Prime Minister Premadasa, electoral violence and electoral fraud were then introduced into the entire system. Even this was not enough to ensure his survival; he called for a referendum for the extension of the life-span of members of parliament, thus denying the electorate the right to elect their own members. In the democratic world, this act of President Jayawardene will remain a mockery of the Sri Lankan people for their entire history. This is the legacy that Pradeep Jayawardene can claim; the legacy of the denial of the electoral rights of the people.
Such grandsons, if they have any political respectability, owe it to the nation to first make an apology for the tremendous destruction caused to the democracy by their grandfather. They are not worth being listened to until they at least acknowledge that the legacy they represent is one that caused destruction to the nation and to its democracy.
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