Double edged Argument on two term Limit

by Jehan Perera

(September 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The government has decided to present its proposal on constitutional change to Parliament on September 8. There appears to be a growing number of opposition parliamentarians ready to support the government. The government leadership is once again showing its capacity for decisive action. What it wants to do it does, whether it is winning a war that many thought un-winnable or constructing a harbour that many thought was uneconomic. The opposition to the constitutional changes has so far been limited to commentaries in the media and to some posters put up on the streets. There has been no movement of people or organized agitation that could impact on the government.


On the other hand, there is no evidence of popular support for the changes proposed by the government either. There are reasons for the muted public response to the constitutional amendment. Not even drafts of the constitutional amendment proposals were placed before the people for their input and discussion. In the past week I traveled to different parts of the country to address meetings on promoting national reconciliation. The towns included Puttalam, Anuradhapura and Vavuniya. The issue of the constitutional amendment did not come up in these discussions. When I asked the community leaders who gathered why this was so, they said they did not know enough about the reforms to talk about them.

There are also two further reasons that bear upon this appearance of public apathy. There is a popular perception that the government is too powerful to have its will thwarted in any way. The opposition parties are in disarray, some of their members being willing join the government. Even entire political parties that were in the opposition appear to have adopted this line of reasoning. With the opposition so visibly weak, and unable to overcome their internal problems, the prospect of an indefinitely long term for the government is a possibility. Even opposition parliamentarians belonging to the main opposition party appear to be thinking this way as they cross the floor one by one to make their way to the government benches.

In addition, not many would wish to get on the wrong side of a potentially long lived government that has shown itself to be highly effective in neutralizing opposition to itself. There is a culture of impunity that has accompanied these governmental victories. Even when patently illegal activities have occurred such as being abducted in broad daylight during the days of war or media institutions being attacked long after the end of the war and set on fire, the wrongdoers have rarely if ever been brought to justice.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT

One of the key arguments being put forward by the government is that the present constitutional changes will bring about political stability. This is an attractive inducement to the business community to acquiesce in the government’s plans. Three decades ago President J R Jayewardene too made this argument. He said that the strong presidency would provide stability to economic decision making. He proceeded to crush the labour movement and sack 40,000 strikers from the government service. He invited the "robber barons" in to invest in the country. He said that his first three priorities were jobs, jobs and jobs. In retrospect it may be said that those hard decisions in the early 1980s laid the foundation for the JVP insurrection a few years later.

Government spokespersons have also been making the argument that the security of the country requires a strong executive. They argue that it was the strong executive that enabled the defeat of the LTTE. There were occasions when Parliament itself was divided and the government’s parliamentary majority appeared to be threatened. But President Rajapaksa was able to utilize his presidential powers to win over opposition parliamentarians to the government’s side through various means, including the offer of ministerial positions. On the other hand, there is a correlation between the rise of the Tamil militant movement and the coming into being of the Executive Presidency which concentrated power at the centre, whereas the Tamil aspiration was for a devolved form of government.

The main problem with the Presidency in Sri Lanka is that its powers are virtually unlimited. The present constitutional amendment will make the President’s powers even stronger. The constitutional changes take away the checks and balances that are necessary in any institution whether they be private sector, NGO or government. Checks and balances mean that no individual or group of individuals can decide important matters by themselves, without being subjected to review. The 17th Amendment which is to be overridden by the 18th Amendment will take away the check and balance of independent institutions. If the lifting of the two term limit had been accompanied by the establishment of an independent Election Commission, there would have been a viable system of checks and balances in place. But now, the next Presidential election will be conducted by a person who is appointed at the sole discretion of the President and is therefore accountable to him. The conflict of interest can clearly be seen.

Another argument brought up by the government leadership is that removing the two term limit on the President is actually an enhancement of democracy as it gives the people the choice of electing or not electing a President who has completed two terms in office. However, a President who abuses his power and misuses the state machinery to oppress the political opposition, is more likely to win the election. Vested interests begin to grow around a powerful President who has been continuously in power for many years making it difficult to remove such a President through free and fair elections. The situation in Zimbabwe, where President Mugabe has been winning highly manipulated elections for the past thirty years is an example.

PRESSURE COOKER

Any system in which there are resources and power tends to get stale and corrupt if it does not change. This observation is generally applicable, whether to private companies, NGOs or governments. The benefit of a change of President due to the existence of the two term limit was seen on two occasions in Sri Lanka. On the first occasion, President Jayewardene is believed to have harbored hopes of contesting a third time. He probably would have done so if the constitution permitted him. However as it did not, he stepped down. At the time he stepped down, President Jayewardene was facing the JVP insurrection which was steadily getting worse. His successor President Ranasinghe Premadasa adopted new tactics to deal with the situation and succeeded in quelling the insurrection.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga too had to end her stay as President due to the two term limit. During her two terms in office President Kumaratunga tried to defeat the LTTE militarily after having failed at negotiating peace with them, but she was not successful. President Rajapaksa was able to become President due to the existence of the two term limit. It enables new leadership to emerge to take on the challenges that the old leadership may not have succeeded in resolving. President Rajapaksa adopted new tactics to deal with the LTTE and won. Therefore it can be seen that all the main arguments put forward by the government with regard to the two term limit are double edged. In such a situation it is neither democratic nor pragmatic for the government to race through with its constitutional proposals.

Countries with stable and successful political systems have engaged in mass education and public consultations for a considerable period of time prior to changing the Constitution. If the government sticks to its plans the constitutional amendment process will have taken less than two weeks from the time of its presentation to the general public to its implementation. The government only announced its decision to amend the constitution after it had succeeded in persuading several opposition parliamentarians to cross over or to offer their support to giving it a 2/3 majority in Parliament.

The country’s previous experience is that unilateral constitutional changes by the government in power, without the support of the opposition, are invariably partisan and self-serving. Constitutional changes that do not win the support of all sections of the country’s politically plural and multi ethnic society are unlikely to stand the test of time. What is at stake is participatory democracy and governance that is accountable. The failure of the government to make a genuine effort to reach out to the opposition parties and to obtain the informed participation of the general population in the process of constitutional reform means that the country is like a pressure cooker. It looks calm, but soon the steam will begin to emerge.