Features
LK! You should be living at this hour!
By Rohana R. Wasala
The following is a tribute to the late Hon. Lakshman Kadirgamar, the then foreign affairs minister of Sri Lanka, who won UN recognition for an international Vesak Day holiday twenty-four years ago.
Buddhists annually celebrate the Vesak Full Moon Poya Day as the day that the Birth, the Enlightenment and the Parinibbana (passing away) of the Buddha (the Enlightened One) took place twenty-five centuries ago. The founder of Buddhism was born as prince Siddhartha Gautama at Lumbini in the southern part of present day Nepal north of India in 623 BCE as officially recognized by the World Heritage Convention of the UNESCO. The place is protected by the government of Nepal.
This year (2024) Vesak Day is observed in Sri Lanka on May 23. Thailand is hosting the 19th United Nations Vesak Day at Ayutthaya, Bangkok on 19-20 jointly organized by the Thai government and the Supreme Sangha Council of that country. Vesak Day was not celebrated as a UN recognised international holiday before the year 2000. On May 18 that year, Vesak day was marked as an international holiday by the UN for the first time. This was as a result of long overdue recognition being won at the world body by the then Sri Lankan foreign minister (indisputably the best we’ve ever had) Hon. Lakshman Kadirgamar (LK) as, in his own words, ‘….acknowledgement of the contribution that Buddhism, one of the oldest religions in the world, has made for over two and a half millennia and continues to make to the spirituality of humanity …….’. This achievement was made possible, probably almost entirely, by the force of his personality and his standing among his colleagues from diverse nations (politicians and diplomats) in that august assembly. Even LK himself didn’t expect the enthusiastic support he got for his resolution from countries (that have little to do with Buddhism) such as Iceland, Ireland, Slovakia, Spain, USA, Turkey and the Russian Federation.
In my personal estimation, LK with his unmistakable overall cosmopolitan outlook was the only true nationalist politician the country has had for nearly half a century. Feelings such as patriotism, nationalism become pernicious religions when they are adopted to serve one’s own narrow selfish motives, consciously or unconsciously. LK did not ‘become’ a patriot or a nationalist to hoodwink the masses and grab power for ego aggrandizement and for family-bandyism, evils that we have so long indulgently tolerated in our elected rulers. (Aside: Even if not assassinated by the LTTE as he actually was on August 12, 2005, had he continued with his cosmopolitan nationalist politics, LK wouldn’t have survived long in one piece among his contemporary political friends and foes, who are still alive! His concern for the good of his own people, fellow Sri Lankans, was a manifestation of his non-sectarian concern for all humanity (inspired no doubt by his Christian upbringing reiforced by his later discovery of the commonality between Christ’s and Buddha’s teachings). That must have been a key factor behind his determination to have Vesak recognised by the UN.
As the scion of a generational Anglican Christian family, Lakshman Kadirgamar was invited to deliver the Rev. Celestine Fernando Memorial Oration on October 9, 1992. The topic he was given was ‘The Social Relevance of the Bible for Our Times in a Non-Christian Society’. He asked for and was granted ‘the liberty to treat the topic assigned to me in any manner of my choice’.
Justice C.G. Weeramantry who was in the audience praised LK’s speech as ‘a memorable exposition of comparative religion in a historical setting. He described different creeds as “the historical formulations of the formless truth”, and spoke of the different shapes of vessels which contained the treasure which was “one and inviolate”….’. But, unsurprisingly, LK’s lecture did not go down well with some Christians because of his laudatory references to the Buddha. LK had said: “Among the inspiring treasures of the human spirit is the memory of Gautama, the Buddha. His hold over the imagination of millions of our fellow human beings is immense; his inspiration to braver and nobler living for centuries is incalculable; his contribution to the refining of the spirit of man and the humanising of human relations is immeasurable. And yet, attempts were made by men fighting under other flags, earnest lovers of their kind no doubt, to destroy the memory of that great soul, to terminate his influence. We can only attribute those efforts , to prejudice, to ignorance”. In my opinion, these words of LK are still most relevant to the situation in Sri Lanka.
‘According to someone present at that lecture, Kadirgamar’s main thesis was that Christianity shared many values and teachings with Buddhism and that Jesus had been influenced by the teachings of the Buddha. These views correspond to the thesis in the famous book by the German theologian Holger Kersten titled “Jesus Lived in India – His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion.”
Lakshman Kadirgamar was a rare human being and a great Sri Lankan. May his memory be a blessing to us all!
I wish to thankfully mention here that I drew the above information about the late Lakshman Kadirgamar (which supplemented my own prior knowledge about him) and what I have put within quote marks from ‘THE CAKE THAT WAS BAKED AT HOME LAKSHMAN KADIRGAMAR: Snapshots of the Man’s Life’ by His Daughter AJITA KADIRGAMAR ’ pp.302-316 (Vijitha Yapa Publishers, Colombo, 2015)
In today’s times when flow of capital takes place globally and many a times without any controls, it is important that Sri Lanka becomes a strong sovereign state in the region to begin with, a state that boldly spells its terms and conditions and also cleverly wades through the complex diplomatic tunnels in the region. The economic meltdown might have created an image of a weak nation and it might have given indications to the aspiring monopolistic private capital owners that they can potentially turn it into a banana republic. The emphasis on the strong sovereign state, with transparent, people-friendly laws and processes inside the nation. This needs to be signalled globally making it clear that people are the priority and not profiteering by the new Sri Lankan state.
By Ravi Kumar
Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power (NPP) has won over 2/3rd in the 225-seat Parliament. This is the first time in the island’s history a single party has secured a super majority in Parliament under the proportional representation system currently use. This ‘super-majority’ of the NPP needs to be read as a mandate to take bold decisions, enact new policies without populist fears. The support for NPP has come from across the country as shown by the spread of their victorious candidates. For instance, the Tamil dominated Northern and Eastern provinces have also given them substantial votes. They won two seats in Trincomalee, getting around 42.48% of the votes in the district; won two seats in the Vanni district and got around 20.37% votes; and bagged three seats in Jaffna with 24.85%.
The same trend is seen in the central highlands with a substantial population of Tamils of Indian origin. This overwhelming support can be read as a message of discontent and desperation that people have felt across the country with the way mal-governance over the years led to impoverishment, violence, and destruction of public institutions such as health and education. This also means that the onus on the running the new government in a ‘different’ way now lies with the NPP, which is for the first time going to govern the country. The onus is also on the intellectuals and activists who till now have been giving suggestions on policy matters but now have the task to build a new Sri Lanka. If this opportunity slips away, it will be considered a failure of all those sections who generated a hope to act upon each and every symbol of the destruction of the Sri Lankan institutions. A promise has been made. And hopes have been rekindled.
This electoral mandate is deeply embedded in accumulated frustrations among the masses with the way governance has been carried out in Sri Lanka in past, which led to what has been termed the ‘economic meltdown’ post-2019, which saw its culmination in 2022 when people in large numbers protested in the streets across the land. General practice of electoral democracy has been that parties win elections and appearing again on the horizon just before the next elections while spending the rest of the time accumulating wealth for individual politicians and hoarding them in tax havens or investing in other countries.
Given the hope generated by the NPP, the next few years will be a significant text of extreme proportions requiring overtime work by the new government. Governance is ideally a shift from the rhetoric that goes on during the run up to elections. Post-elections, it is about putting ideas and visions into practice, actualising them on the ground. With huge intellectual backing, the NPP will have to reimagine policy-making, keeping in mind their vision of the new Sri Lanka. How it moves ahead will be keenly watched within Sri Lanka as well as globally.
The new government cannot create deep structural transformation and the JVP and its allies, under the NPP umbrella, realise this. On the other hand, neoliberal interests, representing the predominant global paradigm, will not let Sri Lanka go for a direct pro-poor, welfarist state and they would bargain when it comes to financial aid. Capitalism, which has been in crisis globally has resorted to authoritarianism of the worst kind, and has been destroying institutions that have any potential for dissenting knowledges and advocacy and replacing them with direct rule of corporates.
The NPP-led government will have to move towards a framework that incorporates welfarism without shunting out private capital, but putting ample controls over it. The other side of welfarism is also that it creates a solid basis for the local economy to become robust and potentially feed into economic activities. Sri Lanka will have to develop a model of development that moves away from a blind financial aid based economic development. It was this blind aid policy which fostered massive corruption in earlier governments and dragged the economy into deep slumber. There is a deep economic divide and this will have to be bridged, while also creating a wider purchasing power among people, providing Sri Lankans ample opportunities in agrarian economy as well as elsewhere.
Knowing that this is not going to be a new Sri Lanka of restructured social relations of the egalitarian kind, the balance has to be created wherein the private capital works along with the state, which has to frame policies safeguarding interests of people and not the private capital. One of the models that may work is a combination of the private and public wherein the state does not withdraw from social sectors, but rather reasserts its role through better funding and innovative management and also allow private players to exist. For instance, the state-run education system will have to be transformed radically from where it stands now so that Sri Lanka produces the best minds and become a centre of new, relevant and innovative learning for the South Asian region. But this should be done without stopping private players in education to establish their centres. Let the vast mass of Sri Lankans get an education at state cost which will be comparable to any other education elsewhere. Obviously, the experts would put their minds to reimagine the education system, for example by not thinking that good education comes at the cost of local language but it can happen even while Sinhala and Tamil flourishes. The same must be done in the field of health. With the kind of super-majority that the NPP has got, this is very doable.
In today’s times when flow of capital takes place globally and many a times without any controls, it is important that Sri Lanka becomes a strong sovereign state in the region to begin with, a state that boldly spells its terms and conditions and also cleverly wades through the complex diplomatic tunnels in the region. The economic meltdown might have created an image of a weak nation and it might have given indications to the aspiring monopolistic private capital owners that they can potentially turn it into a banana republic. The emphasis on the strong sovereign state, with transparent, people-friendly laws and processes inside the nation. This needs to be signalled globally making it clear that people are the priority and not profiteering by the new Sri Lankan state. It is also the time to reconfigure the image of Sri Lanka locally, regionally and globally, and one hopes that this will be done in the next few years. This is going to be a ‘now or never situation’ for NPP and also for the people of Sri Lanka.
(Ravi Kumar is a columnist for the Deccan Herald while his writings also appear in The Wire, Scroll and The Leaflet. He teaches sociology at South Asian University, New Delhi)
Komal’s morning view was of jagged, forbidding mountains, the rush of the river dozens of metres below the family home on the cliff. That was until the water became a torrent and tore the ground away beneath their feet.
“It was a sunny day,” says Komal, 18.
For generations, her family had lived among the orchards and green lands in the heart of the Hunza valley in the Karakorum mountains of Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan region.
“In the morning everything was normal, I went to school,” Komal says, “but then my teacher told me that Hassanabad bridge had collapsed.”
Upstream, a glacial lake had formed, then suddenly burst – sending water, boulders and debris cascading down the valley and gathering speed. The ground trembled so violently some people thought there was an earthquake.
When the torrent hit the cement bridge that connected the two parts of the village, it turned it to rubble.
“By the time I came home, people were taking what they could out of their home,” Komal says. She grabbed books, laundry, anything she could carry, but remembers thinking that with their house so far above the water there was no way it could be affected.
That was until they received a phone call from the other side of the valley; their neighbours could see that the water was stripping away the hillside their home stood on.
Then the homes began to collapse.
“I remember my aunt and uncle were still inside their home when the flood came and washed out the whole kitchen,” she says. The family made it to safe ground, but their homes disappeared over the edge.
Today, walking through the grey rubble and dust, there are still coat hooks on the wall, a few tiles in the bathroom, a window with the glass long gone. It’s been two years, but nothing has grown on the crumbling cliff that used to be Komal’s garden in Hassanabad.
“This used to be all a green place,” she says. “When I visit this place I remember my childhood memories, the time I spent here. But the barren places, they hurt me, they make me feel sad.”
Climate change is altering the landscape across Gilgit-Baltistan and neighbouring Chitral, researchers say. This is just part of an area referred to by some as the Third Pole; a place which has more ice than any other part of the world outside the polar regions.
If current emissions continue, Himalayan glaciers could lose up to two-thirds of their volume by the end of this century, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
According to the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), more than 48,000 people across Gilgit Baltistan and Chitral are considered to be at high risk from a lake outburst or landslide. Some, like the village of Badswat in the neighbouring district of Ghizer, are in such peril they are being evacuated entirely to relative safety, their homes rendered impossible to live in.
“Climate change has increased the intensity and frequency of disasters across the region,” says Deedar Karim, programme co-ordinator for the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat.
“These areas are highly exposed. With the increase in temperature, there are more discharges (of water) and then more flooding. It’s causing damage to infrastructure, houses, agricultural lands; every infrastructure has been damaged by these increasing floods.
“The rainfall pattern is changing. The snowfall pattern is changing and then the melting of the glacier is changing. So it’s changing the dynamics of hazards.
Moving populations is complicated; not only have many spent centuries on their land and are loath to leave it, but finding another location that is safe and has access to reliable water is complicated.
“We have very limited land and limited resources. We don’t have common lands to shift people to,” says Zubair Ahmed, assistant director of the Disaster Management Authority in Hunza and Nagar district.
“I can say that after five or 10 years, it will be very difficult for us to even survive. Maybe people will realise after a few years or decades, but by then it will be too late. So I think this is the right time, although we are still late, but even now this is the time to think about it.”
Pakistan is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, although it is only responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“We cannot stop these events, because this is a global issue,” Mr Ahmed says. “All we can do is mitigate and get our people prepared to face such events.”
In the village of Passu, just over an hour’s drive from Hassanabad, they are holding an evacuation drill; preparation for potential destruction. The population know that if there is an emergency, it may take days for outside help to arrive if the roads and bridges are blocked, damaged or swept away.
Trained in first aid, river crossing and high mountain rescue, they practise evacuating the village a few times a year, volunteers carrying the wounded on stretchers and bandaging mock injuries.
Ijaz has been a volunteer for the last 20 years, with many stories of rescuing lost walkers in the mountains. But he too is worried about the number of dangers and the increased unpredictability of the weather in the area he calls home.
“The weather now, we just can’t say what will happen,” he says. “Even five years ago, the weather didn’t change as much. Now after half an hour we can’t say what it will be.”
He knows too, that there’s only so much his team of volunteers can do.
“Unfortunately, if the flood comes and it’s a heavy flood we can’t do anything,” he says. “The area is totally washed out. If it’s small then we can help people survive and escape the flood areas.”
There are other mitigation measures across the region; stone and wire barriers to try to slow floodwater, systems to monitor glacier melt, rainfall and water levels, speakers installed in villages to warn the community if danger looks likely. But many who work here say they need more resources.
“We have installed early warning systems in some valleys,” says Mr Ahmed. “These were identified by the Pakistan Meteorological Department and they gave us a list of around 100 valleys. But because of limited resources, we are only able to intervene in 16.”
He says they are in discussions to expand this further.
A few houses along from Komal lives Sultan Ali, now in his 70s. As we talk sitting on a traditional charpoy bed, his granddaughters bring us a plate of pears they’ve picked from their garden.
He knows that should another flood happen, his home could also disappear into the valley, but says he has nowhere to go. “As I approach the end of my life, I feel helpless,” he tells me. “The children are very worried, they ask where will we live? “We have no options. If the flood comes, it will take everything away and there’s nothing we can do about it. I can’t blame anyone; it’s just our fate.”
We watch his grandchildren play tag in the shade of the orchard. The seasons, the ice, the environment is changing around them. What will this land look like when they are older?
Komal too is not sure what the future will hold. “I don’t think we will stay here forever,” she says. “The condition is clear already. But the question for us is we have no other place to go. Only this.”
[BBC]
by Rajan Philips
More than the actual numbers, it is the extent of the NPP’s sweep, from north to south and from west to east that is truly historic and stunningly remarkable. There is nothing to analyze here. The National Peoples’ Power (Jathika Jana Balawegaya) has led and won the most number of seats in 21 of the 22 electoral districts, with the sole exception of Batticaloa where the NPP is placed second after the ITAK.
And of all places, the NPP has won the Polling Division of Jaffna, which is the old Jaffna City electorate that in its heyday was represented by Sir Arunachalam Mahadeva in the old State Council before 1947 and by the great GG Ponnambalam QC in the new parliament for 13 years after the 1947 elections. This is not the time for political prognostications, but the symbolism of the moment should not be missed. And the moment is nothing but the clear voice of the Tamil voters indicating their openness to change and their clear message that they are not some ponies for a political derby orchestrated by diaspora funding.
Nationally, the NPP has secured 159 seats, 141 electorally and 18 from the National List. It is a two-thirds majority that should be more humbling than arrogating. President AKD has struck the right note and tweeted, in all three languages, “Thank you to all who voted for a renaissance!” Renaissance, indeed!
On the other side, it is a humiliating rout for the opposition. The SJB is a distant second with 40 seats, and every other party reduced to single digits – the ITAK getting eight seats, Ranil’s New Democratic Front gathering five (much better than the UNP in 2020), and the once almighty SLPP and the ever supple SLMC reduced to three seats each. An assortment of seven solitary winners bring up the total to 225.
When Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the presidency in September with 42.3% of the vote, some pundits started calling him a ‘minority president.’ There is no such entity. The people have now answered the pundits with their clear verdict – 61.6% of the vote and 159 out of 225 seats. Yes, the voter turnout was lower at 69%, but still among the highest in the world. The people have voted in larger numbers for the NPP in November than they voted for AKD in September – from 5,634,915 to 6,863,186, a clear 1.2 million increase.
On the other hand, voters have turned away from Sajith/SJB and Ranil/DNF between the two elections. Sajith Premadasa polled 4,363,035 (32.8%) in September while the SJB could attract only 1,968,716 (17.7%) on Thursday, even fewer than the 2,771,984 (23.9%) votes SJB got in the 2020 parliamentary election. Ranil Wickremesinghe and the DNF have surged downward: from 2,299,767 (17.3%) in September to 500,835 (4.5%) in November.
The ITAK (Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, the good old Tamil Federal Party) also garnered a lower number of votes and seats in 2024 than in 2020 – from 327,168 votes and 10 seats to 257,813 votes and eight seats, Frontline parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran is a noted casualty in the Jaffna District.
So much Newness
Sri Lanka elected a new president on September 21. Now it has is elected a new parliament, and more than half of them are first time MPs. Within days there will also be a new cabinet – a fully fledged cabinet unlike the cabinet of three that took care of the affairs of the state and government between the two elections. All the elected bodies of the national government are new at the same time.
There has never been so much newness at a single time in the 93 years of our electoral history after the introduction of universal franchise and the election of the first State Council in 1931. Most of us, including all those newly elected, were not born then. Not even Ranil Wickremesinghe, the condescending wise owl of Sri Lankan politics in the 21st century. But the voters have gotten used to his wisecracks, learnt to laugh at his jokes, and ignore his politics.
With plague on all the old political hands, the people opened up to the NPP for a breath of fresh air in September. Now they have given it a full blast. That places quite a burden of responsibility on the new President, the new parliament, and the new government. They don’t have much time for a slow learning curve, or too long a runway for making actionable decisions. They have to run as they learn and learn as they run.
There was much talk about too many elections too soon. In fact, two elections too many. This has been the case since 1977, but no one has done anything about it for 47 long years. Things were fine for the preceding 30 years from 1947 to 1977 when there was only one parliamentary election every four or five years (except in 1960 March and July), and the people directly knew whom they were voting for and electing.
Now there are only lists for each district and the infamous national list. We know how many seats different parties have won but the faces of those who will be taking those seats are yet to be seen. Add to that the new faces who will be coming to parliament for the first time.
It is time that the country reverted to the old system where the voters can see the faces of candidates as they run to get past the post. With an added mechanism to ensure proportionality between the votes garnered by each party and the seats they are assigned in parliament. It is not that difficult except for the vested interests (spearheaded by Ranil-Rajapaksas) who wanted the lists system to continue to maximize the returns on their corrupt political investments. They are all gone now. No need for individual political obituaries.
It is time too to revert to the old parliamentary system and end the direct election of the head of state. President AKD and the NPP are fully committed to making this reversion and the people have mightily endorsed it. The time for debate is over and the time for delivery, if not deliverance, has come. It is a matter of implementing change with maximum responsibility and minimum fuss.
New Parliament, New Cabinet
The challenges facing the new president and the new parliament are enormous. But they are not insurmountable. The first steps that they will be taking in the next few weeks will be watched for signs and signals by well wishers and detractors alike. These steps will involve how the new, large class of 155 MPs are oriented to their new life and its tasks and responsibilities. Thankfully, there will be no ragging. There are not many seniors left to rag anybody anyway. And all the rogues of old have been sent packing.
In other jurisdictions and countries, civil servants prepare binders of instructions and offer presentations for incoming legislators and governments. I am not sure if there is such a practice in the Sri Lankan parliament. In any event, there may not have been a need for such an exercise over the last 24 years when the same old rascals kept coming back in spite of their ignorance and irresponsibility.
Now, with new kids on the block there is opportunity to start with a clean slate and supplemented by instructions on parliamentary procedures, legislative process, financial accountability, and the general roles and functions of MPs and ministers. It would be a worthwhile task that will set the mood for the months ahead.
Educating MPs is boring stuff for political watchers who will be all eyes on who is getting in as ministers in President AKD’s full cabinet. Apart from outside busybodies, it is crucial for AKD and the NPP to get their first cabinet right. We do not know much of the internal JVP/NPP politics that will influence cabinet making, but it is safe to say that AKD and the NPP are uniquely placed to create a cabinet based on secular factors (abilities and qualifications), as opposed to a-secular considerations (family, caste, region, and religion) as well as the co-opting of individual for ethnic representation.
In almost all cabinet making in the past more than necessary deference was given to a-secular factors and co-option considerations. President AKD and the NPP have a historic opportunity to break with this tradition in substantial ways. We will see how much of a break is being achieved when the new cabinet is announced. The cabinet composition will also be scrutinized for its alignment with the NPP’s policy objectives and the countries priorities.
In other words, what will the make up of the cabinet say about the NPP’s approach and its ability to manage the economy, exorcise corruption, maintain essential supplies at affordable costs, reform the educational and health and transport services, and deliver on its promise of a new constitution. There are lessons that could be drawn from past cabinet compositions to find out – both what to do and what not to do.
From 1947 to 1977, the core composition of the cabinet has been the same. The portfolios associated with economic development included finance, land and agriculture, trade and commerce, industry and fisheries. The 1965 UNP government under Dudley Senanayake introduced a new portfolio for Nationalised Services, and a new focus on tourism and foreign exchange albeit in the Ministry of State with JR Jayewardene as the Minister. The 1970 United Front government introduced Plantation Industries as a new portfolio to look after what were then Sri Lanka’s primary export products – tea, rubber and coconut. The portfolio of housing was also introduced to address the urban housing problem.
Even after 1977, with the switch to the presidential system, President Jayewardene maintained the same cabinet composition. As the first head of state and head of government, he assigned himself only three portfolios – defence, economic planning, and higher education. The purpose of including higher education was to implement his idiosyncrasy for privatizing education in general.
But that is not my point here, the point is that he limited his cabinet assignments to a minimum, similar to the two portfolios – foreign affairs and defence – that were assigned to the Prime Minister under the Soulbury Constitution. JRJ even dispensed with foreign affairs; perhaps that was more a snub to the exuberance over non-alignment of his predecessor, Mrs. Bandaranaike.
President Premadasa continued the practice of limited presidential portfolios, although included housing as his portfolio and turned what was an urban problem into a national urgency. He made one significant change and assigned finance to his prime minister, DB Wijetunga. That was the beginning of the end of finance being the single portfolio of one individual minister.
Ironically, it was Chandrika Kumaratunga, the first person who was elected president to abolish the presidency, who opened the floodgates for presidential portfolios. She grabbed finance quite unnecessarily, and assigned to herself (if I am not mistaken) almost a dozen other small and large portfolios. Mahinda Rajapaksa took self-assignments and cabinet expansion to another level, and although there was an attempt to limit this prodigality in the 19th Amendment, what CBK started returned with vengeance under Ranil Wickremesinghe as caretaker president.
It will be revealing to see how President AKD assigns himself portfolios. Actually, the President doesn’t have to be in charge of any portfolio. Unlike the traditional Prime Minister, the Executive President is not the first among equals. He is more than a cut above all the other equals. He has the power to oversee and co-ordinate the functions of all his ministers.
Given the government’s and the country’s priorities, he may want to set up cabinet sub-committees for special areas – for example, export promotion, and preside over them. He could assign himself the portfolio of constitutional affairs to preside over the liquidation of the executive presidency. Beyond that, he should leave all other portfolios including finance to other ministers.
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