Even before the ‘indelible’ ink marks placed on the left little fingernails of those who voted at the September 21 presidential election had faded or washed off, the concerned authorities last Friday began receiving nomination for the November 14 parliamentary election that follows. This process will continue till October 11 when the picture will become clearer. Questions already in the minds of voters, apart from the vital one of which party and what candidates they will choose, include whether figures prominent in the contemporary political picture will bow out. Former President Maithripala Sirisena’s son, Daham’s entry into Dilith Jayaweera’s party last week, is a clear indication that Sirisena Senior is retiring from politics at least for the moment. After defeating Mahinda Rajapaksa for the presidency in 2015, Sirisena opted to return to parliament under Rajapaksa colours, indicating his desire to remain in the game as a mere MP after being President of the Republic.

Will figures like Sarath Fonseka and Wijayadasa Rajapakshe follow Sirisena’s example and keep off the race? At present, many political figures of recent, and not so recent vintage, appear well and truly stranded. Given the manner in which several active figures in contemporary politics aligned with runners they favoured in the presidential contest, it was obvious that they were positioning themselves for the parliamentary election that has come earlier than some of them expected. While the NPP/JVP made clear that the first executive act of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake would be to dissolve parliament, neither Sajith Premadasa nor Ranil Wickremesinghe went public with what they planed to do had they emerged winners. As a result various arrangements would surely have been place in return for support in the presidential race.

The way the game is played in this so-called democratic socialist republic of ours, all kinds of deals including candidates who will run (and from where), national list slots, diplomatic appointments, corporation chairmanships and much more are demanded, and granted, in return for support. Delivery ability, of course, depends on electoral outcomes. Diana Gamage, for example, was able to negotiate a national list seat for herself in the last parliament with Sajith Premadasa in return for the recognized political party she claimed she “owned.” Of course Premadasa lost the August 2020 general election but was able, thanks to proportional representation, to accommodate Gamage on the SJB national list. It was not long before she jumped ship in return for a state ministry in the ruling government. Despite the challenge of her right to sit and vote in the legislature on account of her purported British citizenship, she enjoyed more than one crowded hour of glorious fame.

We wager it would be hard for the ordinary voter to keep track of who jumped from which party to the other in the run-up to the last presidential poll. Last week’s news was that there was no possibility now of an SJB – UNP alliance for the upcoming parliamentary election, although the two parties were in talks. Simple arithmetic on the presidential election results would have made abundantly clear to both Premadasa and Wickremesinghe that such an arrangement would have been advantageous to both sides. But that was not to be. While RW, predictably, was ever willing to let Sajith Premadasa be the prime ministerial candidate of such an alliance, he was unwilling to concede the leadership of the UNP to his one time deputy. He apparently insisted on retaining the party leadership and would not be fobbed off with a ceremonial elder statesman role in the party. So once again there will be no elephant symbol on the ballot paper and the gas cylinder will prevail.

As we have often said in this space, winning an election is a major advantage for the winner if another contest follows, especially as closely as this one. The pithy Sinhala idiom, vaasi paththata hoiya, (hurrah for the winning side) explains it all. With AKD’s comfortable win, although he did not clear the 50 percent plus one vote hurdle to be declared winner at the first count, he was way ahead of both Premadasa and Wickremesinghe with Namal Rajapaksa trailing behind a poor fourth. So that advantage is clearly with the NPP/JVP. The favourable post-election noises already made by the victors are most likely to have won that party more support than they commanded at the presidential election. Only its three MPs in the last parliament and a few other leaders have been visible to the public in the past. The constituents of its powerful Politbureau and Central and Executive Committees is little known. As a result the party’s candidates’ list for the parliamentary election will be most revealing. Voters would eagerly await its publiction to get acquainted with the future movers and shakers of government.

Other factors likely excite curiosity is the future of the Rajapaksa party. Will Basil Rajapaksa, long regarded not only as the pohottuwa’s founder, but also its eminence grise return to the country to organize the SLPP campaign as he had done at all recent elections? Or would he play safe? Would Mahinda Rajapaksa conclude his very long political innings and throw his hat into the ring one last time? From what appears on television screens, he appears getting frailer by the day.

The NPP/JVP will surely make a pitch for a two thirds majority in the new parliament. A simple majority, widely considered desirable in the context of past history (CBK vs. RW), is one thing. But absolute majorities such as those the country knew in 1970 and 1977 can be tyrannies. Remember Mrs. B extended the 1970 parliament by two years and JRJ the 1977 legislature by one full parliamentary term. Proportional Representation (PR) makes such majorities very difficult unlike first-past-the-post presidential elections. Hopefully there will be no two thirds. The September figures suggest this is very unlikely.

Saturday 5th October, 2024

The police top brass is reported to have held a meeting recently to discuss the progress of high-profile criminal investigations. Among the other issues taken up at the discussion attended by Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security Ravi Seneviratne, Acting IGP Priyantha Weerasuriya and other high-ranking officers from the CID, etc., were the probes that had been either delayed or derailed, we are told. Such discussions usually take place when governments change; they receive much publicity and hold out hope initially, but nothing come of them eventually. It is hoped that the aforesaid discussion will not go the same way as the previous ones.

For the first time in Sri Lanka’s post-Independence history, a government with no affiliations to the UNP or the SLFP or their offshoots, such as the SLPP, has been formed. The governments, led by those parties, did not go all out to investigate offences committed under previous administrations and bring the culprits to justice as they feared that they themselves would have to face similar consequences when out of power. This quid pro quo may explain why those who should have been imprisoned for various offences years ago remain free today. The prevailing culture of impunity is one of the reasons why the people supported the NPP in the recently-concluded presidential election.

The NPP administration will have to live up to their expectations. Its opponents argue that although the JVP, the largest constituent of the NPP, has not wielded state power previously, it was part of the SLFP-led UPFA coalition, which won the 2004 general election, and it honeymooned with the UNP during the Yahapalana government; therefore its track record is far from squeaky clean. The only way the NPP can prove its critics wrong and retain public support is to have the unsolved crimes committed under previous regimes probed thoroughly and the perpetrators thereof brought to justice.

One of the main election pledges of the NPP was to restore the rule of law and ensure that crimes would not go unpunished. The killers of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and rugby player Wasim Thajudeen are still at large. The police obviously connived with the politicians and their kith and kin blamed for those crimes, and chose to drag their feet on investigations thereinto. The mastermind behind the Treasury bond rackets has not been traced, and no serious effort has been made to have former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran extradited from Singapore to stand trial for the scams. The state coffers lost billions of rupees due to the sugar tax scam under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government. The need for a thorough probe into that racket cannot be overstated. The politicians involved in the on-arrival visa racket have not been arrested, and they must be made to face the full force of the law without further delay.

As for the Easter Sunday carnage, there is no need for another protracted probe. The Catholic Church has categorically stated that National Thowheed Jamath leader Zahran Hashim’s handler, who called himself Abu Hind, masterminded the terror attacks; Abu Hind’s real identity is known to the current Secretary to Public Security Seneviratne and the members of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that probed the carnage, according to Spokesman for the Colombo Archdiocese Rev. Fr. Cyril Gamini Fernando. It defies comprehension why ‘Abu Hind’ has not been arrested yet.

There is no reason why the NPP administration cannot order high-level probes into the aforesaid scams and killings posthaste. Verbalising about the virtues of justice and the rule of law won’t do. Let the new leaders be asked to fish or cut bait.

Friday 4th October, 2024

Much is being spoken these days about the need to eliminate corruption, which has eaten into the vitals of Sri Lankan society. However, clean governance has been reduced to a mere political slogan in this country, and the corrupt continue to go places. While Sri Lanka is paying lip service to the task of ridding itself of corruption, former Singapore Minister S. Iswaran has been sentenced to one year in jail for receiving gifts worth USD 300,000 and obstructing justice while in office.

Charges against Iswaran included accepting expensive gifts such as tickets to English Premier League football matches, the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix, London musicals and a private jet ride. If Sri Lankan politicians were to be prosecuted for such offences, most of them would be behind bars. The new government of Sri Lanka has taken moral high ground and is making a public display of what it calls its commitment to eliminating bribery and corruption. It has received praise from foreign diplomats for its anti-corruption drive, but its leaders are among the politicians who have received undeclared funds.

Iswaran, who held several key Cabinet portfolios, such as transport, communications and trade, had to resign as a minister last year, when his transgressions came to light. He initially protested his innocence, saying that he would fight to clear his name, but subsequently he pleaded guilty to five charges.

The Singapore court rejected Iswaran’s plea for leniency. Presiding Judge Vincent Hoong is reported to have said: “Trust and confidence in public institutions are the bedrock of effective governance, which could all too easily be undermined by the appearance that an individual public servant has fallen below the standards of integrity and accountability.” The classification of a minister as a public servant is of interest. Sri Lanka’s new government should seriously consider having Judge Hoong’s obiter dictum prominently displayed at all state institutions, here.

What basically made Singapore’s quantum leap from the ‘Third World’ to the ‘First World’ possible was its successful war on bribery and corruption under the unwavering leadership of Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), who also restored the rule of law. Clean governance has enabled the city state to retain its No 2 spot on the World Bank rankings for ease of doing business.

In a previous editorial comment on the arrest of Iswaran, we pointed out what LKY had said about ministers and officials in this part of the world. In his widely read book, From Third World to First, he has said: “The higher they are, the bigger their homes and more numerous their wives, concubines, or mistresses, all bedecked in jewelry appropriate to the power and position of their men. Singaporeans who do business in these countries have to take care not to bring home such practices.” When one sees Sri Lankan politicians and bureaucrats enriching themselves and living the life of Riley with impunity, one remembers LKY’s memorable words.

All Singaporean politicians who did not heed LKY’s aforesaid warning were severely dealt with. The fate that befell Teh Cheang Wan, the Minister for National Development, is a case in point. When the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau launched a probe into an allegation of bribery against him in the mid-1980s, he sought to meet LKY, who refused to see him until the investigation was over.

Wan took his life, and his suicide note said, inter alia, “As an honourable oriental gentleman I feel it is only right that I should pay the highest penalty for my mistake.” If the Sri Lankan ministers had received the same treatment as Wan from their leaders, most of them would have been pushing up the daisies by now, and the vital sectors such as health, education, finance, agriculture and trade and commerce would have been free from corruption, and, above all, fake and substandard drugs would not have snuffed out so many lives in the state-run hospitals.

Now that Singapore has set an example to other countries by throwing Iswaran behind bars, will it extradite one of its citizens, Arjuna Mahendran, to Sri Lanka to stand trial for his involvement in the Treasury bond scams carried out on his watch as the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka? Singapore should help other nations fight corruption, shouldn’t it?

Minister of Public Security Vijitha Herath has said the new government will do everything in its power to have Mahendran extradited. Let him be urged to ensure that the Attorney General’s Department makes a formal request to the government of Singapore to that effect, again.