The New Constitution and political intrigues

Excerpted from volume ii of Sarath Amunugama’s autobiography

One of the important pledges made by the UNP at the 1977 election was the abolition of the 1972 Constitution of the United Front, associated with Colvin R de Silva, and the introduction of it new constitution w ith an Executive Presidency. This far reaching proposal had been made by JRJ many years earlier in an address to the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science. As with all of JRJ’s proposals from the days of the Ceylon National Congress and the State Council, they were novel, well considered and designed to make a significant change in the ‘status quo’.

It was not taken seriously even by the UNP of the time which was under Dudley’s leadership. However, JRJ as usual was serious and thorough. He discussed its implications primarily with his top legal advisors led by his brother Harry and J.L. Cooray – a constitutional expert. He also consulted two scholars of constitution making – Kingsley de Silva and A.J. Wilson, both of Peradeniya University. With the requisite ffive sixths majority in Parliament he gained in 1977, the stage was set to enact the revolutionary constitutional changes he had advocated years earlier.

It was no secret that JRJ would introduce a radically new constitution for the country. He had advocated the need for a constitution with a powerful Executive Presidency both at public meetings and in Parliament. Within two months of his victory, he set up a select committee of Parliament to “consider the revision of the Constitution and other written laws as the Committee may consider necessary”. By November these changes were presented as the second amendment to the 1972 Constitution to Parliament and passed with more than a two third majority.

Consequently, JRJ took his oaths as Executive President on Independence Day February 4, 1978 on Galle Face Green. In our discussions regarding the oath taking JRJ with his usual panache said that he wanted the oath taking to be before a large gathering of the people. He proposed the Galle Face green. Our Ministry proposed that the morning ceremony be followed by a mass musical show on Galle Face Green in the evening. That was a sure way of filling the grounds and GVP Samarasinghe who chaired the preparatory meeting gave us his enthusiastic support.

To improve on the shining hour I asked the SLBC to get down the top popular singers of Hindi film songs for the musical show. This was not difficult because Hindi film makers depended on SLBC broadcasts on their India beam to popularize their products. We had a virtual monopoly of All India broadcasts. Consequently, we got down Mohammed Rafi, Mahendra Kapoor and Asha Bhosle.. The show was announced by SLBC over the airwaves.

From early morning crowds began to throng the green and JRJ’s dream of swearing in before a multitude of people was realized. He may have thought that they all came to cheer him. GVP was happy to receive accolades on our behalf for his stage arrangements. JRJ gifted the pen he used to sign the pledge to the national archives.

We in the Information Ministry had no role in planning the new constitution, unlike in the case of the 1972 constitution which I have described in Volume One. But we could comprehend the background to JRJ’s move in our informal discussions with Ministers and other Parliamentarians. The first information was that JRJ had been traumatized by the 1956 defeat of the UNP and his own defeat in the Kelaniya electorate. He had continuously represented Kelaniya for several decades from the State Council days.

Yet he had been easily defeated by R.G. Senanayake whose sole objective was to get personal revenge. In 1956 the UNP had actually won more votes than the MEP. But due to the prevailing electoral system the UNP had won only a few seats. JRJ concluded that the solution was to find away to give value to every vote through the ‘Proportional Representation’ system. PR had the added advantage in his view, that it would always provide for a strong opposition in Parliament which would prevent radical and hasty legislation. The second imperative was to strengthen the role of the Party; mainly because the UNP had been up to then the largest and best organized political party in the country. His original idea was to have an election in which the voter would only vote for a party of his choice.

On the allocation of seats depending on the number of votes polled, the relevant Party, through its Secretary, would nominate its quota of members to Parliament. To further strengthen the hold of the Party, any MP crossing over would forfeit his seat. Younger advisors Lalith and Gamini however suggested that the conferring of all powers to the Party officials would discourage their grass roots supporters who tend to gather round individual leaders. It was too heavily stacked in favour of the seniors who were not necessarily more intelligent or popular.

Accordingly the original proposal was amended to include a preferential ballot system which would enable the voter to choose three candidates from the party list. That proposal, which was adopted, came from Athulathmudali. But the biggest change was the introduction of the Executive Presidency. The Executive President would be elected on the basis of a nationwide poll. He would form a cabinet from the MPs and one of whom would be the Prime Minister whose basic responsibility would be to ensure the passage of legislation as proposed by the Cabinet led by the President.

He was essentially a manager of Parliamentary affairs whom Premadasa derisively said was ‘no more than a peon’. Thus, the legislature is brought in as an accessory to the Executive President who any way had the power to dissolve parliament after one year of its term. The President also appointed the senior judges and the Judicial and Public Service Commissions. It was a constitution in which the President is supreme.

The Constitutional scholar A.J. Wilson called it a ‘Gaullist Constitution’ though in reality it was an amalgam of the French and American Executive Presidential systems. The concentration of powers in the hands of the President was its primary objective. It alarmed the Opposition precisely because of that. As Dr. N.M. Perera, himself a constitutional expert, said “What if the President goes mad?” thereby highlighting the danger of an individualistic approach to the use, or abuse, of State power.

Some safeguards were included no doubt but, as we saw later, they were insufficient. At the base of this transformation however was the five sixths majority that JRJ had obtained in the 1977 election. The new constitution with PR was designed to ensure that it did not happen again. It did because President Gotabaya Rajapaksa managed to win nearly a two third majority in Parliamentary election of 2020.

JRJ with his long political experience and commitment to Parliamentary values may have hoped to tailor a constitution which could promote quick economic growth while maintaining basic human rights. But a series of unfortunate decisions led to a sense of bitterness in the Opposition that did not auger well for a consensual approach which was necessary if the new Constitution was not to descend to autocracy.

Parliament

The 1977 Parliament was like no other. The long-standing balance between the Government and the Opposition did not prevail. For the first time the Parliamentary Opposition could not be considered a government in waiting. Also for the first timer the Leader of the Opposition was not a Sinhalese. The Sirimavo regime was routed in 1977 because JRJ had cunningly removed all the props of the SLFP-led United Front. The Left, particularly the LSSP and the CP, were alienated from Mrs. B And after bringing a damning no—confidence motion against her personally, they formed their own Left Alliance. At the hustings they criticized Mrs. B and the SLFP more than the UNP. The Left even promoted a breakaway group of SLFPers, including Mrs. B’s relative, Nanda Ellawela, to join them, which added to the misery of the PM.

Then JRJ deftly neutralized the JVP. Wijeweera and his top leadership who were languishing in prison, struck a deal whereby they would be released after a UNP victory. Reciprocally, the JVP then attacked Mrs. B thinking that by sinking the SLFP they could sweep up the anti-UNP votes and become the main opposition in the country. After isolating Mrs. Bandaranaike, JRJ made overtures through Colombo Tamil businessmen to the TULF These businessmen were smarting under the austerity measures of the SLFP regime and its promotion of favourite Sinhala Mudalalis.

Finally he reached out to disgruntled SLFPers like R.S. Perera, Maithripala Senanayake and Kalugalle who had been attacked by the UK returned Anura Bandaranaike. Anura was angry that JRJ’s offer to get him to Parliament unopposed from a Rajarata seat was sabotaged by Maitripala and his supporters. All these maneuvers worked and the SLFP was decimated. The SLFP defeat was so decisive that they trailed behind the TULF in numbers in the opposition. As a result, Amithalingam, the TULF leader was made the Leader of the Opposition and Mrs. B was made to eat humble pie. There was mounting criticism of her rule from within the party. She had to expend her energy in keeping the warring SLFP groups together. To make matters worse her son and favourite, Anura turned against her.

Inherent Problems

In retrospect all these maneuvers may be seen as a JRJ exercise in overkill. He had, by trying to be too smart, created an environment which came back to haunt him later, particularly during his second term. By marginalizing Mrs. B and the SLFP he pushed them to an extreme Sinhala nationalist position. Their only concern then became to wrong foot JRJ and his policies at any cost. By making Amirthalingam the Leader of the Opposition, JRJ provided him with many facilities to peddle a separatist line which added to the fears of the Sinhalese.

This soured ethnic relations even further. JRJ’s solution was to promote Cyril Mathew as the voice of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism within his Cabinet. Mathew went on the rampage alienating not only the Tamils but also middle of the road Sinhalese who wanted to settle the ethnic issue peacefully. Since Mathew was Esmond’s friend I knew through him that it was JRJ who was behind his outbursts. But the net result of these stratagems was a rapid worsening of ethnic relations in the country.

To make matters worse Mrs. B used her considerable influence with Indira Gandhi to paint the new Government as Anti-Indian and Pro-American. Unfortunately for Sri Lanka this was a time when there was a radical shift in Indian foreign policy wherein Indira Gandhi adopted a theory of ‘Bharat as a regional hegemon’. Indian strategic think tanks were promoting a concept of the ‘Indian sphere of influence’. The open economy and globalization that JRJ and Ronnie turned to was interpreted as a ‘test case’ and a challenge to Indian interests in the region.

This led to a special concern in the fate of the Tamils particularly as Indira Gandhi, pushed into the opposition, wished to play the ‘Tamil Nadu’ card in the increasingly murky political atmosphere of the time. This was particularly ironic because the northern dominated Indian Government had just emerged from a grueling linguistic conflict with its southern states which resisted the imposition of Hindi as the national language over Tamil and other regional languages. This conflict between the North and South of India had been resolved with the acceptance of the notion of ‘linguistic states’ – a development which did not go unnoticed by the Sri Lankan Tamils.

While JRJ’s tactics were Applauded by the UNP, the country was slipping step by step into a quagmire of regional misunderstandings and domestic ethnic conflict which finally destabilized the country for three decades and blunted the trajectory of economic growth which had started with much promise in 1977. The new President could not see it coming. Nor did his advisors and our Foreign Ministry which was still dominated by the ‘Anti-Indianist’ officials. As Gabriel Marques has written “It is easy to start a war but it is not easy to stop one.” Sri Lanka was on the slippery slope to an ethnic war.

Tension was intensified with the deprivation of the civic rights of Mrs. B, Felix and several senior officials. Whatever may have been the reasons given for this decision, which was facilitated by the Government’s steamroller majority in Parliament, it was clear that there were other, and less altruistic, motives for this drastic move. One obvious need was to eliminate the prospect of Mrs. B being JRJ’s rival at the next Presidential election. Since under the new constitution a President could have two terms of office, JRJ was the automatic choice of the UNP for the election due in 1983. Mrs. B would equally have been the automatic choice of the SLFP as his rival.

Without her the SLFP would be at a disadvantage since it had no other leader of her stature. The numerous aspirants to succeed her began to fight with each other. At that time the talk in town was that there was something more personal in JRJ’s insistence on depriving his rival of her civic rights. The President believed, it was said, that Mrs. B had deliberately ordered the arrest of his only son Ravi during the early days of the 1971 JVP uprising. Ravi was an Olympic level marksman and it was not difficult for rumor mongers to convince her that he had a hand in training insurgents in the use of firearms.

A few days later, after JRJ had made representations, Ravi was released. But it was said that he harbored a grudge because “my son was forced eat out of a tin plate”. Since I was in Temple Trees in April 1971, as I have described in Volume One of my Autobiography, I knew personally that Mrs. B had at that time, no grudge against JRJ or Ravi and she quickly released him after she was informed of his arrest and Police clearance was obtained. But in the poisoned atmosphere of the time facts did not matter and revenge was high on the agenda.

I too felt that it was not proper to deprive the former PM of her civic rights. Many prevailed on my friend minister Gamini Dissanayake to try and stop this misadventure. Among those who advised Gamini were many Kandyans who said that Mrs. B did not deserve this treatment. At that time Gamini was cannily wooing the Kandyans in Colombo who were it considerable number. JRJ, in a typical sleight of hand, sought to put this matter before Cabinet. Gamini was requested by many to intervene in Cabinet on Mrs. B’s behalf.

He, on the other hand faced a dilemma because he knew that JRJ was the author of this convoluted scenario and would not be pleased if his cabinet paper was challenged. Gamini, who did not want to alienate the supporters of Mrs B decided to have a top secret meeting with Hector Kobbekaduwa who at that time was living in Aloe Avenue. Unfortunately for him, Gamini Athukorale, at that time a UNP Junior minister, also lived in Aloe Avenue and spotted Minister Dissanayake sneaking into Kobbekaduwa’s house. The following day he reported this to JRJ, who was furious.

He even spoke to his friends about removing Gamini from the Cabinet on grounds of breaching Cabinet confidentiality. That night Gamini came to my house at Siripa road in a panic. He told me that I could help him by persuading my Minister Anandatissa to defend him at the Cabinet meeting and also raise his voice against JRJ’s proposal. By this time Amanda had told me that he too was unhappy about this move. So it was not difficult for me to approach him on Gamini’s behalf. When I spoke to him, I got the feeling that the canny Gamini, fighting for his political life, had got others also to influence my Minister. The upshot was that Ananda made a strong case on Mrs. B’s behalf at the Cabinet meeting.

Though he and Gamini were out voted, JRJ noted that there was resistance especially because many other Ministers kept silent during the discussion. He made up with Gamini and good relations were re-established; but Mrs. B was stripped of her civic rghts. There is a postscript to this episode. Mrs. B was grateful to Gamini for his gesture and would treat him with great courtesy when he and I saw her during our DUNF days. In the days of the Premadasa impeachment she had absolute confidence in Gamini and allowed her party to join Lalith and Gamini in their reckless bid to take revenge from Premadasa.

I was told that Mrs. B cried when she heard of Gamini’s death. This episode also created an enmity between Gamini and Athukorale which persisted up till the former’s death. Premadasa cashed in on this enmity and appointed Athukorale as the successor Minister to Gamini in the Mahaweli Ministry. Athukorale immediately began a witch hunt and wanted to implicate Wickrema Weerasooria in a land deal, but he was not successful. Later in the Gamini–Ranil conflict in the UNP, Athukorale became Ranil’s chief supporter. But here again he failed because Gamini beat Ranil by one vote in the leadership contest. Then Ranil and Athukorale tried hard to sabotage Gamini’s Presidential bid.