Politics

JULY 9: THE REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE AND ITS AFTERMATH

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M. Sornarajah
Emeritus Professor of Law
National University of Singapore.

What took place on July 9, 2022 was an immense event in the political history of our country. It sundered the norms of the existing constitutional order operated by people of privilege, the newly rich businessmen, ethno-religious chauvinists and corrupt familial groups that have dominated the politics of the island. It was truly a revolution.

People came from different corners of the island to protest against the abuse of power, the corruption and nepotism that had fleeced the people of their resources. There was a need for the radical reshaping of our political system. The Aragalaya provided us with such an opportunity. It requires a different theory other than the continuity of the constitution.

Those who operate the Consitution, the Parliament, the Speaker, the President and Prime Minister, now lack legitimacy in the eyes of the people. They have made it abundantly clear during the uprising on July 9, 2022. It resulted in a President slinking away to Singapore. A new President has been elected by the members of the party he had controlled and with the support of some MPs, it is said, swayed by unbefitting considerations. The legitimacy of the process needs to be assessed.

It can truly be said that all people of different ethnic groups and religions joined in the ouster of this meritless group of populist leaders who have ruled this country through the stoking of ethnic passions and religious animosity. The popular uprising against this system, now known as the Aragalaya, chased out the man who won with 6.9 million votes. In his place, we have his alter ego who lost the elections barely winning 20 thousand votes. This evident travesty has a base in the old constitutional order, operated by cliques of privileged family groups, newly rich chauvinists and politicians swayed by patronage and money politics The old order has been tenacious in it hold.

In marshalling the Aragalaya, the young wanted a new beginning, signalling a dramatic change amounting to a revolution accomplished through peaceful means. They eschewed the ethno-religious politics of the past. They kept the older political monks out of the fray. They wanted a more equal society based on merit. They wanted to do away with corruption and nepotism in public life. They wanted an end to the family politics of the Rajapaksas. They wanted state funds spirited away to foreign states to be brought back.

People came from all corners of the island to support the Aragalaya, giving the movement a unique vigour. On July 9, they took over the Presidential Palace. It was a peaceful revolution. It was our Bastille Day. Maybe, we should celebrate it as our day of independence when we as a people drove out the line of tyrants who replaced the colonial rulers. They ruled over us by raising a smoke screen of ethno-religious hatred. All the while they stole from the state coffers, enjoyed a high life style while professing nationalism and ensured that their cronies had a share of the comforts.

Revolutions result in a change to the constitutional order of the old regime. Revolutions have been so explained in other Commonwealth countries where they have taken place. When revolutions occur, the fundamental norms that sustain the laws of a country undergo a change. The basic institutions like the Constitution and Parliament of the existing order lose their efficacy and legitimacy due to purely external, political factors. In democratic societies, this occurs when a people rise against the existing order and demand changes as has happened in Sri Lanka. The phenomenon has been considered by the Commonwealth courts.

The leading instance is the Grundnorm Case (Madzimbmuto v Lardner Barke), a Privy Council decision concerning the legitimacy of the white supremacist government of Rhodesia. It has since been followed by courts in Uganda, Pakistan and elsewhere in the context of revolutionary changes. They recognise that when political changes occur, the fundamental principles of the constitutional order lose legitimacy and have to be restructured. President Gotabaya ran away because he rightfully sensed that his fiat did not run in the country as a result of the uprising of the people against him.

Now, we have a new President elected by a Parliament that has lost its validity. Most of its members cannot walk on the high streets of their electorates without fear or without a police guard. The members of the Pohottuwa Party (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna) are universally reviled. Can the President elected by these persons have any legitimacy? The mathematics behind the promises made and the actual voting simply do not match. Mr Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s suspicion that votes were bought with money is not far off the mark.

Legitimacy of the new President and a Cabinet he forms becomes an issue. The country will be in ferment until this issue is solved. We cannot have a total breakdown. It will not do the people any good. We have to trust that the illegitimate President, elected by MPs who evidently have lost the support of the people, now cloaked with the vestiges of power, will do the right thing by the people.

President Wickremesinghe has “learnt of books and learnt of men and learnt to play the game” with a straight bat. He now has a crooked bat in his hands, acquired through suspicious means. He was taught law by a distinguished Faculty at the University of Ceylon. He knows all about basic norms, that give validity to laws, changing as a result of revolutions. He is very different from the run of the mill Sri Lankan politician.

The best he can do under the situation is to arrange for fresh elections in six months so that a new government could have a fresh mandate and the new order which the young so desperately desire can be established. It is what the people want – a chance to choose again, a chance to exercise a right of recall of the MPs elected to the present Parliament so that they could establish whether or not they are wanted by the people. It will unite our country. It will end the ethnic strife and the politics of hatred that has befuddled the island since independence.

It will end corruption. President Wickremesinghe will then go down in history as the man who made the change. If he stays on as President, preserving the interests of the Rajapaksas and provoking a long-drawn protest, his place in history would be that of a tyrant who maintained himself in power through the use of force against his people.

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