Azdak’s Justice: On governance, executive presidency and people’s democracy

by Sivamohan Sumathy

The Aragalaya, Porattam, Struggle is a truly people-based movement. It is messy, diverse and hugely contradictory in the views expressed, positions held. It cuts across classes, and at the same time, represents the weakest and the most oppressed. It is truly representative, on a mass scale of people’s dissent and consent. The materiality and vocalness of the Aragalaya ask for the broadest possible representation in governance. It militates against the rule of a single person, the cult like figure of the Executive President, who has far reaching, arbitrary powers.

The Executive Presidency: History

In our 74-year history as a post-colonial country, we have been living with the Executive Presidency for far longer than the Westminster model of political structure. Yet, reform of the Executive Presidency or its abolishment has been one of the key issues at almost every election and attempts at constitutional reform. The key feature of the Executive Presidency is that arbitrary powers are centred on a single political figure, lending itself to authoritarianism, and as Jayampathy Wickramratne points out, Gaullism. What it means is the near creation of a cult like charismatic figure, with power vested in the aura, the demeanour and the political stamina of a single figure. Conversely, such a focus on a single figure, has also made that office, that position a relatively unstable one, a lofty but lonely office, without equals and at the same time, without friends. As Deepika Udagama stated in the Kuppi Webinar recently, the Executive President has no place like the parliament, or the company of other parliamentarians to parley, and finesse one’s moves, where discussion could take place, feedback enjoyed. The Executive Presidency in our country has made for the destabilisation of the same office which we seem to think is the strongest and the most powerful position. So, we are also looking at a paradox, one that is not uncommon, alas.

In his series of articles in The Island, Jayampathy Wickramaratne quite cogently argued the case for why the office should be abolished. It has to be said though that all the ills of state governance cannot be laid at the feet of the Executive Presidency. In fact, both Wickramaratne and Udagama argue that centralisation of the state commences with the first Republican constitution of 1972, and not with the ’78 second republican one. The unitary state, and the clause that grants Buddhism the foremost place and the enshrinement of Sinhala as the only official language sealing the pronouncement of “Sinhala Only”, as Wickramaratne argues, sets the constitution off on the path of the centralised state.

Executive Presidency and political society

With the inauguration of the Executive Presidency, the key term of negotiation within political society shifted from a focus on Parties, characterised by lateral level relations, rank and file lobbying, distinctive ideological preoccupations, political constituencies, and mobilisation by activists with their strong ideological, familial and community based bonds TO a politics centred on figures, even at the lower levels. Firstly, it strengthened a politics of patronage (eclipsing other modes of mobilisation), a politics centred on individuals or a set of individuals known for their proximity to central authorities, secondly, instituted links between the centre and the periphery, or authority and the people, not through the MPs and political organisations, but organisations that undermined MPs, and other political bodies, such as Viyathmaga or Divi Neguma – Livelihood Upliftment programme, and thirdly, instituted a politics of disbursement of perks, favours and positions, and a simultaneous undermining of welfare measures. This shift helped create a group of people at the bottom beholden to those at the top. So, from Top to Bottom, lines of engagement between political figures and the people became lines of patronage, centred on individual figures, families of individuals. At its worst, and that’s what we have now come to experience with shock, is a total disconnect between the MPs, and members of local political bodies, and the people. So, while parties continue to function, they are stepping stones to power and the corrupting influence of governance, and not of building cohesive social groups at the village or town level. We also see a shift from understanding political governance as a democratic act to understanding governance as an abstract concept and as power sharing; not as devolution of power to the lower levels of political society. It is within this framework, the 13^th Amendment, and the Provincial Councils, came to function and function rather badly. Patronage politics were further strengthened and devolution of power was never really about devolution.

The current juncture

We are in the midst of a revolution. We may not think so, but we need to understand it as a revolution. But like at all revolutionary times, there could be a pull- back, a roll- back. Only a few weeks ago, the violent and authoritarian political forces that were at bay, have regrouped at the top. Violent attacks on protestors and arbitrary arrests have recommenced. There are incipient signs of people being disappeared – again, after a hiatus of some years, post war. It is corrupt business as usual in the parliament. With shock we realise the scale of the powers of the Executive Presidency.

Two aspects of the political dominate our discussion and inform our anxieties. The economy and governance. Where governance is concerned, the Executive Presidency is what requires immediate and urgent attending to. It needs to be abolished. This call enables us, the people, to reconnect to the political, governance, authority at the deepest level possible today. It is a revolutionary call for democratic change.

Beyond the Executive Presidency and Parliamentary Democracy

It may be dangerous to stop at the call to abolish Executive Presidency. We need to assure ourselves and assume certain positions of power for ourselves in deliberate ways. For parliament to be truly representative, there have to be initiatives and processes that complement parliamentary deomocracy within both political and civil society. I flag some of the moves that could lead to participatory democracy in a more direct fashion.

To abolish the Executive Presidency, we need constitutional reform. However, we need to go beyond that and think of constitution-making as a simultaneous process. It is a process in which all peoples of Sri Lanka should be engaged at some level. At the moment, we are totally engulfed by the legalist understanding of the constitution, constitutional provisions and what is possible and not possible. Constitution making shall centre people’s concerns, not merely as rights, as we do now, but as polities and as direct participation in governance.

Modes of participatory democracy have to be explored in all seriousness. We have already experimented with independent councils and commissions, most of which have been abolished by the 20^th Amendment. But even if they are to be brought back, and are to be supported by Expert Committees, as has been suggested elsewhere, they hardly represent subaltern agency. In addition to the commissions, we need to think about mechanisms like People’s Councils and a Shadow Government.

People’s council as an idea has gained much traction, but one is keenly aware that it is in practice, a messy, fuzzy one. Hasini Lecamwasam in her Kuppi Intervention in The Island, last month, outlined the way People’s Councils may be envisioned; as a tiered system that both supports and challenges the parliament’s acts.

A shadow government prepares the people for governance; to take up the challenge of holding all those in authority accountable to the people. A shadow government will run parallel and be outside of the constitutional structure. A shadow government is also shadowy; one may not know what it is. People’s councils and People’s shadow government should be envisioned as the twin mechanisms and processes of a truly democratic process.

People’s Justice

People’s participation in governance is democracy for all; and that democracy is what I would call People’s Justice. We should seize this revolutionary moment by its horns, and create an act that is not a parody of Grusha’s crossing the river, a metaphor for the agency of the subaltern, arrogantly appropriated by Ranil Wickramasinghe to justify his authoritarianism, but one that is truly revolutionary. It is Azdak’s justice: a quixotic moment of judicial order that empowers and underlies Grusha’s subversion of authority.

Interventions on the current political and economic crisis is a Kuppi Initiative