CBK narrowly wins hard fought poll and Gamini D defeats RW by one vote to become opposition leader

Soon after the results of the 1994 election were announced by the Commissioner of Elections there was a flurry of activity from the UNP camp because though it had lost the plurality of votes cast, the number of MPs in each camp was about even. Gamini thought he had a chance of getting Ashraff’s support for the UNP and sent a helicopter to fetch him from Amparai. Ashraff landed in Colombo and went straight to meet CBK and offer his support. Wijetunga’s anti-minority chickens were coming home to roost.

Wijetunga was happy about my success (at the election). He was thinking of his future now that the SLFP/PA would form a government. He asked me to negotiate with the PA for him to remain as the titular President and for CBK to be the interim Prime Minister as she had given a pledge to abolish the Executive Presidency. At that point of time the SLFP was all for abolishing the executive Presidency. I telephoned GL Peiris who was the newly appointed Minister of Justice about this proposal and he requested me to meet him in his office in Hulftsdorp.

After listening to me he said that he had asked CBK about it and that it was premature to decide on Wijetunga’s request. I did not know then that she had no intention of abolishing the Executive Presidency now that she had ascended the “Gadi”. It was rumoured that she had consulted JRJ who had advised her that with her Parliamentary majority of one it would be suicidal to let go of the Presidency which she could soon contest as Wijetunga’s term was coming to an end. According to my information JRJ had told CBK that “She would last only five months as PM but would remain for five years if she was the executive President”.

CBK apparently thought that it was good advice. There was much hostility in the faction ridden SLFP to her assuming the premiership and there was open lobbying to appoint Mrs. B as the new PM. She was requested to serve as a minister in her mother’s Cabinet. This has been confirmed in CBKs recently published biography. Wijetunga however graciously recognized CBK, made her comfortable in the new environment by serving “Kevum and Kiribath” and thereby earned the respect of the young new leader of the country. CBK was appointed PM by him and she then set her eyes on the Presidency albeit with the pledge that she would later ensure the abolition of JRJ’s “Bahubootha” creation as she colourfully described it.

It was time for the UNP to look inwards. The party which intended to “roll up the electoral map” had to face up to its electoral defeat. Wijetunga called up about fifteen seniors and asked me to brief them about GL’s response to his suggestion of becoming the titular President. I think there was some consternation about how I, a rank junior, had been selected to negotiate with the new leaders.

But they took the verdict with good grace and asked Wijetunga to reorganize the party in the face of the impending Presidential election.

All the recently elected MPs of the party were assembled in the Presidential chamber and a secret ballot was held to decide on the new leader of the Opposition. It was also “ipso facto” an election of the new UNP leader to take over once Wijetunga retired in a few months time. It was a bitterly contested election between Ranil, who up to now had as PM held the reins of succession and his challenger Gamini who had been a popular leader of the party before he was sacked by Premadasa. It was a cliff hanger of an election and Gamini won by one vote.

It was a bad defeat for Ranil who took it with ill grace and withdrew from party activities to spend time with his cronies in the outstations. He had a long memory when it came to such setbacks and Gamin’s supporters were earmarked for retribution when he came back to the leadership. Gamini took over the position of the Leader of the Opposition and taking a leaf from JRJ’s book began to reorganize the party. Perhaps in order to embarrass the UNP, and burnish its own credentials, the new Government decided to bring in laws regarding bribery and corruption as its first piece of legislation in the new Parliament. Gamini as the new UNP leader had arranged for human rights lawyer Desmond Fernando to brief our Parliamentary group regarding the proposed bill. Fernando launched a scathing attack on the proposed legislation on technical grounds.

I spoke up and said that we should support the bill anyway because the public wanted an end to corruption. Ranil strongly supported my submissions and when we left the room he came over and thanked me for my intervention. Eventually the group decided to support the bill and my maiden speech in the House was a call to end this cancer in our body politic. While being proud of my first speech I am also aware that nothing has changed and, if anything, unbridled corruption has become endemic to all regimes and leading political parties.

A new experience

The general election was held on August 16, 1994. 1 was declared elected to Parliament from Kandy district on August 17 and was sworn in as a MP on the 25th and allocated a seat in the opposition benches. Chandrika took her oaths of office as Prime Minister, coming late even on her first day in Parliament. Gamini Dissanayake was recognized as the Leader of the Opposition. The government had a wafer thin majority in the house though it had scored a much larger number of aggregate votes countrywide.

Though I had been to the Parliament often as a public servant and occupied the officials box to observe the proceedings there, I entered the chamber as a MP for the first time with a sense of awe as well as of achievement. Not many civil servants had succeeded in winning an election and entering the chamber. I could recall only C.P. de Silva, Ronnie de Mel and Nissanka Wijeratne who were my seniors in the CCS. They were good examples of efficient MPs and I was determined to follow their example. Also there were some of my university colleagues like Dharmasiri Senanayake and Neelan Tiruchelvam who were well regarded by both government and opposition. It would be fair to say that I had better recognition in the House than many other MPs, particularly among those who were newly elected and were occupying the backbenches.

Dress code

Parliament has a dress code. In the early days MPs wore western clothes, except in cases like Bandaranaike and Suntheralingam who wore variants of the “national dress”. [Cloth and long sleeved banian] I decided not follow either of those sartorial fashions but to wear long trousers with a tunic, which my friend Sarath Muttetuwegama characterized as a “Kapati Coat”. It was the least uncomfortable and flashy dress and was being adopted by many of the new entrants while leftist leaders like NM, Colvin and Bernard were always dressed in full western attire.

There were a sprinkling of mostly rural MPs who followed Bandaranaike’s style of cloth and banian with a coloured muffler or “satakaya” loosely wrapped around the neck. After the rise of the Rajapaksas, this attire and a maroon “satakaya” became “de rigeur”. However these “nationalists” were not averse to, on occasion, wearing ill cut western clothes especially for embassy parties where alcoholic drinks were freely served.

Role of Parliament

As a democracy Sri Lanka’s constitution adheres to Montesquieu’s notion of the separation of powers among the Legislature, Executive and Judicary. The legislature was made up of freely elected representatives who are “the voice of the people”. In our constitution the chief executive, the President, is also elected by the direct vote of the people. However his\her Cabinet is drawn from the legislature where he\she must command a majority in order to pass the laws that need the approval of the House. The judiciary interprets laws that have been passed by Parliament and ensures that the civic rights of citizens, as guaranteed by the constitution, are upheld.

Though this is the ideal, in reality the inter se (between themselves) position and powers of these three arms of the state are determined by a variety of factors. The first among them is the dominant philosophy prevailing at the time. For instance in the first republican constitution, the drafting of which is attributed to a Marxist, Dr. Colvin R de Silva, the legislature plays a major role since in the view of Colvin and his government, it best reflects the views of the people. Thus there is no post legislative review of the laws that are passed by the Sri Lankan Parliament. The judiciary can be addressed before a draft bill is debated and decided on by the Parliament. But once the proposed law is considered legitimate on the basis of a determination by the Judiciary and is passed by Parliament no further appeal is possible. Similarly under the Colvin dispensation appointments, transfers and disciplinary action regarding the public service were left in the hands of the Cabinet and not independent Commissions with quasi-judicial powers.

In the second republican constitution attributed to JRJ the executive in the form of the President is vested with powers which were formerly entrusted to a Cabinet of Ministers drawn from the legislature. The Prime Minister, under the JRJ constitution, has no special powers over the Ministers and is only “a peon of the President” as PM Premadasa once famously said. The glue that binds the JRJ constitution is the political party. Members of Parliament are selected on the basis of a party vote in the electoral district [not electorate]. It is only after the seats for a party are allocated by the Elections Commissioner on the basis of votes polled by a particular party that the individual “preferences” polled by each candidate is counted. The highest preference-getters get selected on the basis of seats allocated to the party depending on the aggregate votes polled by it in the district. Under this constitution it was envisaged that there would be no cross overs and by-elections. If a MP crosses over the party can ensure that he is disqualified and another party nominee take his place.

Finance

The main function of Parliament is control of finance. No expenditure of public finance is permitted without Parliamentary approval. Such approval is sought by the executive-President, Cabinet and Finance administration, through the national budget and where necessary, supplementary estimates. We need not go into details here such as drawings from the Contingency Fund and procedures for obtaining covering sanctions, to emphasize that while temporary accommodations by the Executive may be possible, the function of overview of finance is the “raison d’etre” of Parliament which was won after many battles signified by the catch phrase “No taxation without representation”.

The annual budget is the main instrument of the control of finance by the legislature. In this revenue and expenditure statement the executive informs the legislature of its proposals for the collection of revenue and the manner in which that income would be disposed of in the coming year. This has been defined as “a forecast by a government of its expenditures and revenues for a specific period of time. In national finance the period covered by a budget is usually a year, known as a financial or fiscal year, which may or may not correspond with the calendar year.

In Sri Lanka towards the end of the year the Finance Minister presents the details of the budget [budget estimates] to the house which is considered as the first reading. Then after a stipulated time the outlines of the proposals are debated over a few days in the second reading. This is followed by a crucial vote on the second reading which gives the verdict of the House on the budgetary proposals. This vote must be won if the budget is to move forward. On the gaining of a favourable vote in the second reading the budget enters the “Committee stage”when the House turns into “a Committee of the whole House” where the details of the proposals are discussed, Ministry by Ministry.

Here the discussion is less formal where amendments, if necessary, can be proposed and the Minister is free to intervene and provide an explanation for the matters raised by Members of the House in their speeches. In rare cases the government may even agree to some of the members suggestions and amend the financial aggregates accordingly. After the debate on each Ministry, a vote is taken in respect of the estimates discussed and the House moves on to discuss, in Committee, the proposals of the next Ministry in line with the published budget statement. At the end of the Committee stage the House then resumes its normal status, debates and votes on the amended budget at its third and final reading. When the third reading vote is passed the budget procedures in the house is ended and the Speaker affixes his assent to the Bill.

From this it will become clear that in the Sri Lankan constitution with an Executive Presidency, the Minister of Finance plays a crucial role – perhaps more important than the Prime Minister who has only a ceremonial role. For this reason most Presidents have chosen to be Finance Ministers as well. Thus CBK, Mahinda and Ranil have held on to this post while Premadasa appointed Wijetunga nominally to this post while he pulled the strings from behind. The full time Finance Ministers in our time were Ronnie de Mel, Choksy, myself, and Mangala Samaraweera – as good a list as any in our Parliament which is not known to boast of many professionals. I had the opportunity to present three budgets to the house and that is a record of which any politician could be proud. I am especially proud of a hand written letter sent to me by Ronnie de Mel welcoming my appointment as Minister of Finance and referring to our common CCS antecedents.

(Excerpted from vol. 3 of the Sarath Amunugama autbiography) ✍️