Monday 7th October, 2024

The process of submitting nominations for the 14 Nov., general election is currently underway. It is popularly thought that a person who wins the presidency stands a much better chance of steering his or her party to victory at a subsequent general election. But anything is possible in politics, where upset wins are not uncommon. What if a party other than President Dissanayake’s NPP wins the upcoming parliamentary polls?

Dissanayake has been one of the bitterest critics of the executive presidency, which his party, the JVP, has condemned as a wellspring of evil. But he chose to do what his predecessors had done, after being sworn in as the President; he exercised the much-despised executive powers of the President to dissolve Parliament prematurely in a bid to secure control thereof and consolidate his position.

There is a compelling argument that the last Parliament had to be dissolved as the NPP, which had only three members in it, needed to secure legislative power in a general election to carry out President Dissanayake’s policies. But the question is whether a mandate given to a President takes precedence over that of a political party which controls Parliament. There is another argument in favour of the premature dissolution of the last Parliament; the SLPP government, which was full of undesirables, lost legitimacy to remain in power when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR) and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned due to mass protests. One cannot but agree that the SLPP government was full of misfits, but ironically the majority of the people who, unable to make proper judgements, made the mistake of electing those undesirables in the 2020 general election, voted for Dissanayake overwhelmingly at the recently concluded presidential election!

True, the SLPP government mismanaged the economy and inflicted unbearable suffering on the public, who were left with no alternative but to rise against that regime. But if mass protests can delegitimise popularly elected administrations, future governments, including the one President Dissanayake is planning to form, will also lose legitimacy in case of continuous mass protests against them.

Interestingly, Dissanayake, who successfully harnessed the forces that ousted President GR to realise his presidential dream, said in the run-up the 21 Sept. presidential election that President GR was a victim of what Ranil Wickremesinghe’s reckless borrowing from external sources to the tune of USD 13.5% billion during the Yahapalana government (2015-2019). The biggest beneficiary of the 2022 uprising, which the JVP infiltrated and manipulated, was Wickremesinghe, the ‘reckless borrower’; he became the President! Thus, Dissanayake and the JVP/NPP are doubly at fault.

If the political parties/alliances that form governments after obtaining popular mandates can be dislodged on the basis of the outcomes of presidential elections or according to the whims and fancies of the Executive Presidents, then what are general elections there for? In 2015, following the election of President Maithripala Sirisena, the UPFA ceded control of Parliament to the UNP, allowing President Sirisena to appoint Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister. The UNP did likewise in 2019, after GR secured the presidency. In 2004, the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga sacked the UNP-led UNF government, which had obtained a popular mandate about two years after the 1999 presidential election.

In 2018, President Sirisena made an abortive bid to sack Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and then dissolve Parliament. Last month, the SLPP government stepped down, following the election of President Dissanayake, allowing him to appoint a three-member Cabinet before dissolving Parliament. The Presidents who have either dissolved Parliament or wrested control thereof, immediately after being sworn in, came to power promising to abolish the executive presidency or to curtail the presidential powers that help undermine the legislature. Their actions have facilitated the emergence of an unhealthy political culture devoid of co-operation and coexistence between the Executive and the Legislature, unlike in mature democracies.

There is a constitutional provision preventing the President from dissolving Parliament before the expiration of two and a half years of the term of Parliament. In other words, if the President and the Prime Minister happen to be elected from different parties, they will have to co-operate for at least two and a half years to prevent the country from descending into chaos. If so, why shouldn’t they be made to do likewise after the expiration of the first two and a half years of the term of Parliament? The opponents of the executive presidency maintain that the President should be stripped of the power to dissolve Parliament prematurely. This argument has some merits.

The fact that the President has to have control over Parliament to ensure smooth governance points to a serious flaw in the Constitution. The Prime Minister becomes more powerful than the Executive President to all intents and purposes when they happen to represent two different political parties, and they tend to clash. This constitutional anomaly can lead to political instability mainly due to Sri Lankan political leaders’ insatiable quest of self-aggrandisement and unwillingness to cooperate for the sake of the country.

Some political commentators are of the view that both the presidential election and the parliamentary polls should be held simultaneously. But the possibility of two different parties securing the presidency and control of Parliament cannot be ruled out. The way out is for the political leaders to learn to respect the mandates they receive at presidential and parliamentary elections separately and act in the interest of the country.

It is up to the public to elect, as their MPs, only the individuals who have the national interest at heart, at the upcoming general election. Otherwise, political instability is likely to set in, taking its toll on the economic recovery process in case of a party other than the NPP gaining control of the legislature or the next Parliament becoming hung by any chance.