by Tisaranee Gunasekara
“A polis ruled by one man is no polis at all.” ~ Sophocles (Antigone)
Four years ago,
a majority of Lankans elected Maithripala Sirisena as the country’s executive
president.
a majority of Lankans elected Maithripala Sirisena as the country’s executive
president.
A year from now,
the country will be asked to elect its next executive president.
Can the mistakes
of the past be avoided in the future?
What were the
mistakes of the past?
With the memory
of the recent anti-constitutional coup still raw, the readiest answer would be
choosing Maithripala Sirisena as the common presidential candidate.
Hindsight enlightens.
It also distorts. In 2015, the choice was a simple one – do we give Mahinda
Rajapaksa a third presidential term, or do we not? If we wanted to evict the
Rajapaksas from power, democratically, our last chance for it was the
presidential election of 2015. Six more years of Rajapaksa rule, and Lankan
democracy would have been vitiated beyond repair. As Anura Kumara Dissanayake
said, “If the people fail to defeat the insane dictatorship of Mahinda
Rajapaksa at this point, there will be no turning back for Sri Lanka.”[i]
That was the
logic behind the selection of Maithripala Sirisena as the common presidential
candidate. The outcome of the election proved the correctness of that logic.
The mistake was
not the selection of Maithripala Sirisena. That was the right thing to do in
2014. The mistake was failing to hold him to his solemn public pledge to
abolish the the executive presidency.
In his nine-year
rule, Mahinda Rajapaksa had demonstrated the dictatorial dangers inherent in
the Lankan presidential system. By 2014, that danger was clearly understood by
a wide range of oppositional forces. In consequence, the demand to abolish the
executive presidency gained new traction in oppositional circles.
On 21st
November 2014, Maithripala Sirisena walked out of the Rajapaksa government, and
publicly accepted the mantle of common presidential candidate. Addressing a
media briefing, he expounded what he was offering the electorate. The first
item on his list of pledges was the abolition of the executive presidency. Mr.
Sirisena excoriated the executive presidency as a political and moral calamity,
and a crucible of injustice. “We came to a clear decision with the UNP to abolish
the executive presidency,” he stated. “I ask the people to give me power to
abolish the executive presidency in 100 days.”
The mistake was
to let that promise fade into the background, post-victory. The mistake was to
be satisfied with the 19th Amendment. The mistake was to think that
the executive presidency no longer contained a threat to democracy.
For that, the
blame cannot be heaped on Mr. Sirisena alone. An equal share of the blame goes
to the UNP.
Ranil
Wickremesinghe dreamt of using the Rajapaksa-Sirisena divide in the SLFP to win
the next presidential election, easily. His belief of a romp to victory was
such that he paid scant heed to public sentiment, and violated the norms of
good governance repeatedly. Sajith Premadasa (and perhaps Ravi Karunanayake)
dreamt of ousting Ranil Wickremesinghe, and becoming the UNP’s next
presidential candidate. The UNP ceased to champion the abolition of executive
presidency.
Meanwhile, the
plague bacillus of executive power was afflicting Maithripala Sirisena. He
slowly abandoned all talk of abolishing the executive presidency or being a
one-term president. He too had a new obsession – how to win a second term.
Had Ven.
Maduluwawe Sobhita Thero been alive, the pledge to abolish the executive
presidency may not have faded from both political discourse and societal
memory. In his absence, there was no one of sufficient stature to advocate the
idea at the national level.
Another
contributing factor was the mistaken belief (which this writer too shared) that
the 19th Amendment had defanged the executive presidency, and rendered
it sufficiently harmless.
Thus, the ground
shifted, enabling the anti-constitutional coup of October 2018.
The anti-constitutional coup as a blessing in disguise
Where was the
country on October 25th, the day before the coup?
In 2015,
Maithripala Sirisena won thanks to the unified effort of a truly Lankan
coalition. By 2018, that coalition was in tatters.
The government,
by its actions and inactions, had antagonised most of its former allies. Many
of the failures were needless. A political solution to the ethnic problem might
be hard to achieve, but why the failure to build houses for the war-displaced
in the North and the East? The anti-Muslim riots of Kandy might have taken the
government unawares, but why the failure to prosecute the suspects, and punish
the guilty? It might not be possible to totally stop the slide of the rupee,
but why be so blasé about its impact on the living costs of ordinary Lankans?
Why turn a blind eye to one’s own corruption? Why fail to convict a single
political killer? This last failure looms with obscene starkness as we mark the
tenth anniversary of the murder of Lasantha Wickremestunga.
Not even the
drubbing it received at the LG polls could make the UNP face reality. The
disastrous fuel-price formula became a symbol of the government’s unconcern
about the plight of ordinary voters. The government just didn’t seem to care,
whether it was about the effects of global warming on Sri Lanka, or the rapidly
increasing Chinese footprint (public notice boards in government projects in
Sinhala, English and Chinese, not Tamil!), the daily killing of elephants or
the disastrous consequences of Norochchoali coal-power plant, corruption or
child abuse. The recent horrific incident in Negombo where a dog was burnt to
death served to highlight another one of the government’s avoidable failures –
the non-enactment of the Animal Welfare Act. The government was sleepwalking
into disaster, taking Lankan democracy along with it.
Perhaps the most
striking measure of where we were before the anti-constitutional coup was the
TNA’s (erroneous) decision to nominate Chamal Rajapaksa to the vitally
important Constitutional Council. Thanks to the government’s idiocies, even the
minorities were forgetting the danger presented by the Rajapaksas to the notion
of a pluralist Sri Lanka.
Maithripala
Sirisena’s coup, despite its massive downside, was a much needed knock-on-head
for the somnambulant UNP. The prospect of the return of the Rajapaksas acted as
an eye-opener. Ranil Wickremesinghe displayed unaccustomed resolution, and the
UNP, by and large, rallied round.
Faced with that
mortal threat to democracy, the 2015 coalition recreated itself. The valiant role
played by the TNA and the JVP in defence of democracy was one of the most
positive outcomes of the Sirisena-induced crisis. Speeches by parliamentarians
MA Sumanthiran and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, for instance, became essential
reading, because they explained and interpreted the ongoing crisis from a
national rather than a partisan point of view.
The spontaneous
rallying around by ordinary people in defence of democracy and the rule of law
was another key positive development of the last several months. The mistakes,
inabilities and hypocrisies of the UNP-led administration had done much to
alienate the very people who voted against the Rajapaksas twice in 2015. The
anti-Rajapaksa, pro-democracy camp was so demoralised, scattered, inactive, its
very existence was in doubt. That changed when the anti-constitutional coup
happened, and the stakes facing the country became clear. Ordinary people did
what they could to stand against the growing anti-democratic tide, be it taking
part in demonstrations or signing a petition. That societal engagement is
something new in Sri Lanka, and hopefully will continue to grow, post-crisis.
But the real hero of that saga was the judiciary. In the Supreme Court and the Appeal Court,
all judges stood as one to face the challenge (including Justice Eva
Wanasundara). As the Supreme Court judgement in the case on the dissolution of
parliament stated, “...this court has time and time again stressed that our law
does not permit vesting unfettered discretion upon any public authority whether
it be the president or any officer of the state.”[ii]
The coup has given Lankan democracy a second chance to save itself, by reminding democrats
everywhere of the impending Rajapaksa threat, and by highlighting the need to
abolish the executive presidency before it falls into the hands of a leader who
is more ruthlessly effective than Maithripala Sirisena.
This is no country for an executive presidency
Sri Lanka’s ancient past and its modern present render the country unsuitable for an
executive presidency.
Executive
presidency and democracy go in tandem generally in countries unburdened by a
monarchical past, like the United States. France had a monarchical past, but she
also made a republican revolution against monarchy, and beheaded a king for good
measure. In ancient Lanka kings were killed by usurpers, and not by their own
subjects under the banner of liberté,
égalité, fraternité. In that crucial absence, the executive presidency
gives rise to monarchical longings on one hand, and instincts of servility on
the other.
The obvious
danger facing Lankan democracy is a Rajapaksa winning the next presidential
election. 19th Amendment may have placed Mahinda, Basil, Gotabhaya
and Namal Rajapaksa out of the running, but no such disqualification hampers
Chamal Rajapaksa. He will be a very effective candidate, both in terms of
attracting supporters and disarming opponents.
Even if the
Rajapaksas lose, who will win? Maithripala Sirisena fortunately cannot. That leaves
Ranil Wickremesinghe – and as lesser possibilities, Sajith Premadasa and Ravi
Karunanayake. Do we have any reason to believe that any one of these leaders
would conduct himself more democratically than Maithripala Sirisena, once the
presidency is his?
The new
president (whoever he is) is likely to dissolve the parliament as soon as
possible, to enable his party to benefit from the knock-on effects of the
presidential win. This would mean a parliamentary election around late
March/early April. The chances are that one party/formation will gain control
of both the executive and the legislature. How effective will the checks and
balances introduced by the 19th Amendment in such a situation, when
the prime minister is merely a minion of the president?
There is a
glaring flaw in Lankan political system which renders the country particularly
unsuitable to an executive presidency – the absence of inner-party democracy in
any of the major political parties. For instance, many democracies with
executive presidencies (the US, France, Chile etc) have systems or traditions necessitating
major parties to hold primaries to choose their presidential nominee. In Sri
Lanka, leaders remain leaders, and there are no democratic spaces within the
main parties to challenge their stranglehold or policies. This absence of
internal democracy can play a role in negating the achievements of the 19th
Amendment.
When the Supreme
Court gave its judgement on December 13th, Maithripala Sirisena
accepted it. The importance of that acceptance cannot be overemphasised.
According to some Sinhala media reports (notably Irida Divaina), his new ally, Mahinda Rajapaksa, advised him to do
the opposite, ignore unfavourable verdicts and plough ahead towards an unlawful
election. Had Mr. Sirisena followed that advice, the repercussions would have
been devastating. He didn’t. That alone, the fact that he is still a president
willing to abide by extremely unfavourable judicial rulings, renders the
choices of 2015 correct, even after cataclysms of the last three months.
As the prospect
of electing the next president nears, the question assumes an increasing
urgency – how do we ensure that the candidate we back does not do a Maithripala
Sirisena or worse?
There is only
one safe option – abolish the executive presidency.
If there is
sufficient societal pressure to abolish the executive presidency, if parties
like the JVP and the TNA can provide leadership to that demand, it might be
hard for the UNP to refuse. The JVP’s draft 20th Amendment which
envisages a president who is not the head of government, is elected by
parliament, and cannot function as a member of a political party might be a
good starting point.
The effort may
succeed or it may not. But the effort must be made. Failing to do so would be a
criminal folly, after what the anti-constitutional coup taught us.
[i] https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/video-watch-the-blocked-satana-maithripala-to-form-a-national-government/
[ii] https://www.colombotelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/SC-FR-358-2018-Parliament-Disolve-case.pdf
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