Performing exactly as the President pleases

By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena

(April 25, Kandy, Sri Lanka Guardian) The composition of Sri Lanka's current Cabinet of Ministers certainly carries the unmistakable message that appropriate rewards have been handed out to those political supplicants who performed exactly as the President pleased, regardless of whether those actions may have been beneficial in the long run to Sri Lankaor not. Yet notwithstanding this predictable sharing of the spoils, it is to be hoped that the new government would be less defensive and far more circumspect in its dealings this time around, given the peoples' mandate that has been obtained despite a deeply flawed electoral process.

The privilege of a parliamentarian

To that end, permitting the defeated former opposition common candidate to attend Parliament sittings (despite initial rumblings) was one good sign. It may well be said that there was little choice in this, given the applicable law in respect of the privileges of a member of parliament, as affirmed publicly by parliamentary officials themselves. The perception that a clear act of discrimination is being effected, with other parliamentarians in remand on far more heinous allegations than vague charges of offending the Army Act being allowed to attend sittings, would have been too strong for even the most enthusiastic of government apologists to defend.

And while a contrary course of action may perchance not have led to protests on the streets given the virtual lack of an effective political opposition, its long term consequences may have indeed been costly. As we saw last year in regard to the swift challenging of a Presidency that once seemed unassailable, the tide of political fortunes has a tendency to turn course in unexpected directions. Whatever the reasons may be, the fact that such an implacable political enemy of the regime attended the sittings of the House this week was indeed encouraging.

Not the personality but the process

That aside and reverting to this week's composition of the Cabinet, it also needs to be said that while almost any political face may have been preferable as a replacement to the little lamented former Minister of Foreign Affairs, it is to be hoped that his successor would be somewhat more prudent this time around in respect of threatening to sue other nations over matters such as the non renewal of trade privileges or categorising clearly arbitrary and politically motivated arrests and detentions as perfectly in accordance with due process of law.

The issue is not the personality but the process. Regardless of however unpleasant the personality may be, the legal process needs to be observed to its very letter. These are cautions that a professor of law surely ought not to be reminded of. And while appropriate ministerial rewards have now been handed out for such enthusiastic albeit unseemly support, we hope to see greater circumspection in order at least now.

Impact on the media

There are other messages implicit in this week's parceling out of ministries which have quite negative implications for the private as well as the state media in this country. For instance, the allocation of the portfolio of the Deputy Minister of Media to a Presidential supplicant who was known more for his journalist bashing than for any other significant achievement was a veritable slap in the face of the media.

Is this a harbinger to increased intimidation of the media, reducing even the limited spaces available now to exercise the freedoms of speech and expression? We can only wait and see.

In any event, more names will undoubtedly be added to this list in the months to come and an inevitable further splitting of the portfolios, bringing the Cabinet closer to its bloated predecessor.

Constitutional changes

On the other hand, constitutional changes being talked about apparently include the revitalization of the Constitutional Council and the now defunct independent commissions, though such promises attract considerable skepticism at this point in time.

It is clear now that the electoral process needs to be taken out of the highly compromised hands of the Commissioner of Elections and vested in an effective Elections Commission. For any of these changes to be effective however, Sri Lanka's judicial system needs to be depolitcised far more thoroughly, thereby distancing itself from the long and obnoxiously personalized political shadow cast by former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva who should indeed have taken to politics in the first instance itself instead of devoting his efforts to politicizing the judiciary during his ten year term.

Checks and balances

In the context of the country's opposition parties being reduced to abject jokes and its systems and institutions reduced to facades, in what way will democratic checks and balances be imposed on the new government? In what way would the minorities and a increasingly triumphant majority devise ways of cohabitation and compromise?

These would perhaps be the most important questions confronting Sri Lanka in the months ahead.