“…Cicero’s tongue will have to be torn out, Copernicus’s eyes gouged out, and Shakespeare stoned. That is my system.” Dostoyevsky (The Possessed)

In 1787, Louis XVI summoned the Paris Parliament to approve a loan for his financially struggling government. The Parliament refused its consent on the grounds that only the nation, represented by the Estates General, could authorise new taxes or loans. Louis ordered the edict approving the loan be transcribed in the Parliament’s register. The Duke of Orleans objected saying this would be illegal. “The king replied that everything he did was legal” (The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789 – Robert Darnton).

In 2013, Mahinda Rajapaksa impeached a chief justice for refusing to give a pass to an anti-constitutional piece of legislation. In 2020, Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that his verbal orders should be considered as circulars. But even critics of presidentialism regarded monarchical presidents as a Rajapaksa, Lankan or a Third World malaise. That the United States, with its long established institutional, legal, and procedural guardrails, was an exception to this rule was regarded by one and all as an incontrovertible fact.

In 2025 those comforting delusions are crumbling as Donald Trump rides roughshod over vital American institutions from the Harvard University to the supreme court, insisting that his will overrides every other law, tradition, and consideration. Executive presidency’s vulnerability to authoritarianism can no longer be explained away as a Rajapaksa, Sri Lankan or third-world problem. It’s a weakness deeply embedded in the blood, bones, and sinews of the system itself which places a single individual (elected or not) at the apex and centre of power.

The first pushback against JR Jayewardene’s 1971 proposal for an executive presidential system came not from the SLFP or the left, but from within the UNP. Dudley Senanayake, a man less blinded by ambition and less wedded to power than most Lankan leaders before or since, pointed out, in remarkably prescient language, the unsuitability of an executive presidency for Ceylon in 1971: “The presidential system has worked in the United States where it was the result of a special historic situation. it worked in France for the same reasons. But for Ceylon, it would be disastrous. It would create a tradition of Caesarism. It would concentrate power in a leader and undermine the parliament and the structure of the political parties” (Daily Mirror – 8.10.1971 – quoted in JR Jayewardene of Sri Lanka – KM de Silva and Howard Wriggins).

Mr. Senanayake was dead right about Ceylon/Sri Lanka, but wrong in his sanguinity about the United States. In 2025, Donald Trump celebrated his administration decision to terminate federal approval for New York’s pricing programme by writing on his social platform Truth Social, “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan and all of New York is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING.” When a fallible individual is placed at the head of the state and government, the danger of that individual seeing himself/herself as an uncrowned monarch is innate to the system itself (not to mention human mentality). The potential may remain dormant for a long time, but non realisation doesn’t mean non-existence.

As the United States and the world are finding out with King Donald I.

Democratic Penguins Republic

A monarchy is as good, bad or mad as the monarch. This is true of the executive presidency as well. When Maithripala Sirisena unleashed confusion and mayhem on the country with his anti-constitutional coup of 26 October 2018, satirical website News Curry responded with a tweet – “Sales of Marijuana, Cocaine and Ecstasy stall as drug users demand something stronger. Please give us whatever…President Sirisena is smoking,’ said several druggies.” Gotabaya Rajapaksa was so non compos mentis, he turned governance into a theatre of absurdity to which nothing insane was alien.

Now Donald Trump is following suit, busting the myth of American exceptionalism with one insane measure after another.

In the course of his tariff rampage, President Trump slammed 10% taxes on some strange places. Like Jan Mayen island, a small volcanic landmass with no people and lots of polar bears; and the Heard Island and the McDonald Island, both volcanic and both inhabited only by penguins. A You Tube video which went viral captures the absurdity of Trump-economics. Nettled by the unfair tariffs, the hitherto peaceful and retiring penguins of the McDonald Island form an army to wage war on the US. “…an orange hand reached out in shame – and now the world shall learn our name… They taxed our fish they asked for more – we answer tariff with total war” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ8qGOe2K0o).

It is relatively easier to remove a prime minister who crosses the line too often and/or too much. But impeaching a president is a near-impossibility. As Dr Colvin R de Silva warned, “The procedure provided for the removal of a President by Parliament is so cumbersome and prolix…we can be ruled by a mad President for quite a time” (https://www.cpalanka.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Reforming-Presidentialism-27.pdf). Sri Lanka had to suffer under Gotabaya Rajapaksa until he pushed the country into bankruptcy. Donald Trump may do the same – or worse – to the US in the three and a half years remaining to him.

Executive presidency creates a network of patronage which, like monarchy, is centred around an individual. The president becomes the ultimate source of reward and punishment. The Rajapaksas, for instance, used presidential powers to heap largess on acolytes and persecute opponents, often breaking laws and violating norms. Donald Trump too is creating a “brazenly transactional ecosystem…which rewards flattery and lockstep loyalty,” Antonia Hitchens writes. “Recently, a group of prominent Republicans and members of the first Trump Administration signed an open letter comparing the President to a ‘royal despot.’ The insult, however, may not have landed with Trump, who, on February 19th, posted ‘LONG LIVE THE KING,’ referring to himself. But praise for a king often comes, at least in part, from a sense of fear over the power he wields. ‘We are all afraid,’ Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, said last week… ‘I’ll tell you, I’m often-times very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real’ (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/28/how-trump-worship-took-hold-in-washington).

JR Jayewardene introduced the presidential system as part of an overall plan with three main objectives, wrote his biographers, KM de Silva and Howard Wriggins: “political reconstruction and democratic revival; economic regeneration; and a constructive accommodation of minority interest, especially those of the estranged Tamil community” (JR Jayewardene of Sri Lanka). These three objectives fell by the wayside early in the Jayewardene presidency. Democratic backsliding reached its nadir with the postponement of the general election through a manifestly unfree and unfair referendum in 1982. The economy fell victim to political upheavals; growth had plummeted by the end of the Jayewardene presidency. Instead of accommodating minority interests, the depredations against minorities reached a new high, and a small scale insurgency grew into a fully-fledged war. (Incidentally, the opening up of the economy took place before the presidential system was introduced while the Indo-Lanka Accord was the result of Indian pressure. Neither of these positive developments resulted from the presidential system.)

During its lifespan of nearly 47 years, Lankan presidency has undermined democracy, created instability, and institutionalised corruption and unforgivable inefficiency. Not to mention political chaos and institutional disintegration as presidents cling to the invisible crown and would-be-presidents jostle to wrest it.

The Forever Ring

In 2010, Sumanadasa Abeygunawardane, the man hailed as ‘royal astrologer’ predicted that the Rajapaksas would rule the country for the next 50 years: “President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Rajapaksas will rule this country for a long time…. The Rajapaksas will become beloved leaders of this country…. The next chapter in Sri Lanka is reserved for the Rajapaksas” (Silumina – 7.6.2009). Three months later, Mahinda Rajapaksa brought in the 18^th Amendment removing presidential term limits, paving the way for him to contest the presidency again and again.

In 2025, Donald Trump’s online store is selling merchandise emblazoned Trump 2028. These include T-shirts in navy and red priced at $38 reading Trump 2028 (Rewrite the Rules). The Rules mentioned here doubtless refer to the 22^nd Amendment which limits American presidents to two (consecutive or non-consecutive terms). Changing this ‘Rule’ requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate and the Congress and three-fourth majorities in all state legislature – an impossibly tall order.

Yet, President Trump is considering a third term, as he stated in an interview with NBC; asked whether he was joking he said, “No, I’m not joking.” Questioned about the impossibility of amending the 22^nd Amendment, Steve Bannon’s answer was, “There are methods of doing it” (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-is-not-joking-about-third-presidential-term-2025-03-30/). Mr. Trump’s 2020 attempt to gain a second term unconstitutionally led to an armed insurgency against the Congress and the Senate. What chaos results from any attempt to bypass or ignore the 22^nd Amendment remains to be seen.

In JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the main protagonist is the hobbit Frodo Baggins to whom the One Ring is entrusted. When he first looks carefully at the Ring, it “appeared plain and smooth, without mark or device he could see. The gold looked very fair and pure, and Frodo thought how rich and beautiful its colour, how perfect its roundness. It was an admirable thing and altogether precious. When he took it out he had intended to fling it from him into the very hottest part of the fire. But he found now that he could not do so…” The Ring had begun to possess his mind, addling it with desire.

Like Maithripala Sirisena. On 21 November 2014, having walked out of the Rajapaksa government and accepted the mantle of common presidential candidate, he addressed a media conference telling the nation what he would do if he elected. The first item on his agenda was the abolition of the executive presidency which he eviscerated as a political and moral calamity, and a crucible of injustice. “We came to a clear decision with the UNP to abolish the executive presidency,” he stated. “I ask the people to give me power to abolish the executive presidency in 100 days.”

There’s no reason to think he wasn’t sincere, at that moment. When the 19^th Amendment was being discussed in 2015, he wanted to limit his presidential term to four years. The same man soon developed a taste for the presidential One Ring, tried to extend his first term from five to six years, and pushed the country into a mire of chaos simply to win Rajapaksa backing for a second term.

The JVP has opposed the executive presidency from the beginning. Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the NPP promised to abolish it, if elected. Yet, there’s not even a whiff of a coming constitutional transformation. What is indubitable is that Anura Kumara Dissanayake is enjoying being the president, acting the president. He doesn’t look as if he wants to destroy this One Ring by throwing it into the Crack of Doom.

During the presidential election campaign, the NPP/JVP carried out a superlative advertising blitz to market its candidate to a still undecided electorate. Presidential systems focus on individuals rather than parties, organisations or movements. This focus carries with it the danger of birthing personality cults. Signs of such a cult around President Dissanayake are already visible. He has become the government’s main attraction, its problem-solver-in-chief; a saviour in-the-making.

Until he became the president, Mr Dissanayake remained first among equals within the JVP. Now, thanks to the power and the glamour of the presidency, he is elevated way beyond that position of rough equality. He is the Ring-bearer and he seems to enjoying that primacy to the fullest.

The keeper of the One Ring never gives it up, Gandalf the mage warns Frodo; he only plays with that idea. So every previous promise to abolish the executive presidency was broken. Will Anura Kumara Dissanayake go where none of his predecessors did, and fulfil his pledge to end the presidency? Or will he do a Mahinda Rajapaksa, a Maithripala Sirisena, or a Ranil Wickremesinghe and stake the future of the country (and his own party) for another presidential term?

by Tisaranee Gunasekara