Wednesday 20th November, 2024

The JVP-led NPP asked for a mandate to clean up Parliament, and received a mammoth majority for that purpose. Its stalwart bragged that they had asked for brooms but the people had given them bulldozers. A fish is said to rot from the head down, and therefore Parliament has to be cleansed as a national priority. Let the clean-up begin!

One can only hope that the latest regime change will not lead to another false dawn like the one described in Orwell’s dystopian novella, Animal Farm, where the Pigs, after a successful revolt, decree that ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’. The new MPs and ministers must not be allowed to place themselves above the public and lead the life of Riley. After all, that is what the NPP promised during its presidential and parliamentary election campaigns.

In the late 1980s, during its second uprising, the JVP coined a pithy slogan to mobilise the rural youth against the UNP government of the day, by highlighting a glaring urban bias in resource allocation—kolombata kiri, gamata kekiri (‘Milk for Colombo and kekiri cucumbers for the village’). Under a JVP-led government no room should be left for the people to say ‘methi-amathilata kiri, janathawata kekiri—‘milk for MPs and ministers, and kekiri for the public’.

Indiscipline, corruption, violence, brawls, dereliction of duty, waste, and the MPs’ privileges and perks were the key factors that turned public opinion against Parliament to the extent of a mob led by the JVP trying to march on it in 2022. The JVP, which failed to give Parliament a shake-up with bombs and mobs, and its alter ego, the NPP, are now in a position to achieve that goal democratically. Everything possible must be done to reduce the cost of maintaining Parliament and its members.

SJB MP Hesha Withanage has made a very progressive suggestion, which should have come from the JVP/NPP; he has urged the new government to make all MPs and ministers serve the public on a voluntary basis. The MPs’ official residences in Madiwela are being repaired at a massive cost to accommodate the members of the 10th Parliament, we are told. Addressing the media, yesterday, MP Withanage demanded that the MPs’ housing scheme be handed over to a university which lacks hostel facilities for its students. He said so during the last Parliament as well and his position on curtailing state expenditure on maintaining Parliament and the MPs has been consistent.

Withanage has also called for an end to the practice of providing the MPs with heavily subsidised meals in parliamentary canteens. It is doubtlessly unfair to pamper the MPs while the people who voted for them are struggling to dull the pangs of hunger. Secretary General of Parliament Kushani Rohanadheera, taking part in a television programme the other day, sought to pooh-pooh the claim that the MPs partake of sumptuous meals at ludicrously low prices in the parliamentary canteens, where, she claimed, only ordinary dishes were served. If so, let the menus and the expenditure on victuals served in the parliamentary restaurants during the past six months or so be made public so that the people will know whether their representatives have been eating bandakka and kekiri, as Rohanadheera has claimed.

It is puzzling why the NPP has appointed a 21-member Cabinet to do what three ministers had done for nearly two months. It would have made sense if about 15 ministers had been appointed with an equal number of deputy ministers. When the delayed Provincial Council elections are held, there will be 45 ministers in the provinces. Sectors such as health and education will have 10 ministers each—the Cabinet minister and nine provincial ministers. Sri Lankans are paying through the nose to maintain a bloated state service; there is a public official for every 14 citizens!

A country, which is in the throes of a crippling economic crisis and has defaulted on its debt, cannot afford to provide its MPs and ministers with perks that would make even their counterparts in the developed world turn green with envy. MP Withanage is right in having demanded that the MPs must not be given vehicles at the expense of the public. The most effective way to develop public transport is to make the people’s representatives share in commuters’ hardships by travelling in crowded buses and trains. Then only will they really feel the need to solve the chronic transport issues. The new government, as we have said in a previous editorial comment, should adopt the Swedish model in providing the MPs with facilities. In Sweden, only the Prime Minister is given an official car, and all others including the Speaker receive bus and train passes. They are free to use private vehicles but at their own expense.

The JVP-led government ought to manage state funds frugally, launch an austerity drive, lead by example and usher in national progress for the sake of the people, who answered its clarion call for action. The JVP should live up to its ‘anthem’, which its founder Rohana Wijeweera sang with gusto at party events to energise his supporters:

Kusata sagini/Hadata sogini/Gathata veraheli/Kebeli ella/sathuta senasuma ahimi karalu/Andura dinu kalaya gihilla/Nositha meri meri sathurpayata vakutu vee atha paya hakulla/Negitapalla, negitapalla/Numbalage kalaya evilla.

(Roughly rendered into English, it means that gone is the dark era when you suffered under enemy feet, in rags and on empty stomachs with hearts filled with sorrow; rise awake, your turn has come!)

Tuesday 19th November, 2024

The NPP, the ITAK and the Sarvajana Balaya have appointed defeated candidates to Parliament via the National List (NL), making a mockery of their much-avowed commitment to democratic best practices. This has been the name of the game in Sri Lankan politics all these years and one of the main reasons for the erosion of public trust in the electoral process.

The NPP deserves praise for the appointment of a person with a visual disability to Parliament for the first time in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary history. It has fulfilled a long-felt need. Sadly, it has added not just a smidgeon but a scoop of cow dung to the proverbial pot of milk by appointing two of its defeated candidates as NL MPs.

It is said that in this country, in times of yore, some men were tricked into marrying not-so-attractive elder sisters of the women they were betrothed to. Times have changed and this kind of trickery is no longer heard of in matrimonial affairs, but a similar practice prevails in Sri Lankan politics; individuals other than those presented as NL nominees to electors are appointed MPs, and, worse, even total outsiders are brought in to fill NL vacancies, which are often created artificially.

Strangely, the Constitution and the Parliamentary Elections Act provide for undermining the people’s franchise in this despicable manner. As we have pointed out in previous editorial comments, Article 99A of the Constitution allows ‘the persons whose names are included in the lists submitted to the Commissioner of Elections … or in any nomination paper submitted in respect of any electoral district by political parties or independent groups at that election’ to be appointed to Parliament via the NL. In 1988, the then UNP government introduced Section 64 (5) of the Parliament Election Act, inter alia, as an urgent Bill, eroding the essence of the constitutional provisions pertaining to the NL.

The Parliamentary Elections Act of No 1 of 1981, as amended in 1988, allows ‘any member’ of a political party to be appointed to fill an NL vacancy. After parliamentary elections, political parties appoint their NL members, as prescribed by the Constitution, and thereafter engineer NL vacancies to bring in persons of their choice as MPs. It is not possible to have this highly undemocratic practice terminated by judicial means because there is no constitutional provision for the post-enactment judicial review of legislation. This ‘smuggling tunnel’, as it were, must be closed by Parliament itself.

Worryingly, it has now been revealed that the words, ‘any member’, were surreptitiously incorporated into the Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Act after its ratification by Parliament in 1988!

Not everything the Constitution and other laws provide for is morally right and acceptable. The 18th constitutional amendment, which enhanced the executive powers of the President and removed the presidential term limit, had to be abolished because it was found to be detrimental to democracy. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was done away with on the same grounds. Therefore, the flawed legal provisions that undermine the people’s franchise and sovereignty must be scrapped without further delay.

We suggest that Article 99A of the Constitution be amended to scrap the phrase, ‘in any nomination paper submitted in respect of any electoral district by political parties or independent groups’, and the words, ‘any member’ be removed from the Parliamentary Elections Act. This is something the NPP, which came to power, promising good governance, ought to do on a priority basis.

Given the shameful NL appointments at issue, it may not be difficult to imagine what the situation would have been if there had been no preferential vote mechanism; political party leaders would have had carte blanche to ensure the entry of unsuccessful candidates in their good books into Parliament at the expense of the deserving ones against the will of the people. That would have led to what is called the dictatorship of party leaders. Needless to say, an electoral process based on the proportional representation system without provision for voters to indicate their preferences for candidates will be antithetical to democracy. Hence the need to defeat efforts being made in some quarters to abolish the preferential vote.

Monday 18th November, 2024

Following their stunning victory in last week’s parliamentary election, the JVP/NPP leaders must still be pinching themselves to make sure that they are not dreaming. Their mammoth majority is sure to go down in Sri Lanka’s history. However, the bigger the majority, the greater a government’s responsibility and the higher the possibility of the public expecting miracles and becoming frustrated. Above all, the Actonian truism that absolute power corrupts absolutely has stood the test of time. Giving politicians, especially untested ones, steamroller majorities could be just as much a recipe for disaster as keeping teenagers, alcohol and car keys together.

It was somewhat reassuring that JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva lost no time in appearing on television on Friday and promising that the NPP government would handle its super majority carefully and responsibly. However, one expected that assurance to come from the General Secretary (GS) of the NPP, and not the GS of the JVP, which says it is only part of the NPP. Nevertheless, Silva’s pledge will go a long way towards allaying doubts and suspicions in the people’s minds as regards steamroller majorities. One can only hope that the JVP/NPP will honour its word.

The NPP government will have to knuckle down to work forthwith and make good on its promises. It faces a steep learning curve. The new government is full of novices, and most ministers to be appointed will have no experience whatsoever with governance, and there could arise a situation where the political authority becomes heavily dependent on the highly unpopular bureaucracy, as never before. Officialdom is as much responsible as previous governments for Sri Lanka’s current predicament and the resultant public resentment, which the JVP/NPP tapped to propel itself to power.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a political greenhorn, became overdependent on public officials like P. B. Jayasundera, and the so-called professionals, such as doctors and university dons, failed pathetically. Behind every mega racket in the state sector, there is a rogue public official. The fake immunoglobulin fraud in the Health Ministry is a case in point. The fact that the members of the public service, which has become synonymous with inefficiency, callousness and corruption, threw their weight behind the NPP in the last two elections does not mean they are ready to mend their ways, work diligently, enhance their productivity and cooperate with the new government to achieve its goals for the sake of the country. There’s the rub.

The new government will find itself in the same bailout straitjacket as its predecessor, and the IMF, which is at the beck and call of the western bloc, is no respecter of popular mandates in the developing countries. So, whether the NPP government will be able to do things differently on the economic front remains to be seen. Unless it toes the western line, it will have screws being tightened by the international lending institutions.

The National People’s Power government ought to bear in mind that ‘People Power’ entered the political lexicon following a popular uprising in the Philippines in 1986 against dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was backed by the US, which is now pontificating to Sri Lanka on the virtues of good governance. Marcos, whose regime was notorious for corruption and oppression, was ousted for more or less the same reasons as the Rajapaksa government.

But, in 2022, Filipinos elected Bongbong, son of Marcos, as their President. Ironically, his only qualification was that he was the scion of the Marcos family! Similarly, the forces the JVP/NPP boasts of having vanquished, are likely to make a comeback if the self-proclaimed liberators fail to carry out their promises. There have already emerged small pockets of resistance to the NPP’s clean-up campaign; Chamara Sampath (Badulla) and Rohitha Abeygunawardena (Kalutara) have retained their seats! These pockets could act like Covid clusters with the passage of time.

The NPP takes pride in having won handsomely in the North and the East as well in the recently-concluded general election—and justifiably so. That was a singular achievement. But would the people of the North and the East have been able to exercise their democratic rights, especially franchise, much less vote for political parties of their choice, if the LTTE had been around? The JVP did not support the country’s war against the LTTE. Most of all, whether the NPP will be able to retain its popularity in the North and the East will depend on how it handles contentious issues such as devolution and the UNHRC resolutions against Sri Lanka.

Riding a massive wave of anti-politics, the JVP/NPP succeeded in creating a kind of political Morton’s fork—a dilemma in which both choices are equally unpleasant—for the public by lumping its rivals into two groups, the Rajapaksa camp and others represented by the UNP, the SJB, etc.; it vilified both groups as corrupt, inefficient and worthless, while presenting itself as the only saviour. For this purpose, it had the public believe that the country had gained absolutely nothing during successive governments since Independence (1948). If so, how come an office aide’s son from Tambuttegama received free education and graduated from a state university with a science degree, and went on to become the President of Sri Lanka? It is thanks to successive governments that democracy has survived two JVP uprisings and a protracted war for the people to elect governments. The vast majority of professionals in the JVP/NPP, have also benefited from free education, free healthcare, etc.

True, most of the previous governments were characterised by corruption and abuse of power, and they contributed to the present economic crisis, but that does not mean that the country has not achieved anything since Independence, as evident from numerous development projects, impressive health indicators and high literacy rate. Interestingly, didn’t the JVP opt for honeymoons with the governments it keeps condemning, from 1970 to 2019? It was part of the SLFP-led UPFA government, which was in power from 2004 to 2010.

What made the NPP’s impressive electoral victories possible was the unstinting support of the ‘voters of passage’, who shift their political loyalties, based on changing circumstances, their own interests and the prevailing political climate. There is reason to believe that most of those who helped raise the NPP’s votes from a meagre 3% to a whopping 61% and its parliamentary seats from a mere three to a stunning 159 within just four years are the ones who voted overwhelmingly for Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the 2019 presidential race and for the SLPP in the 2020 general election and subsequently resorted to punitive voting against the Rajapaksas owing to contrition. Many of them are also known for virtue signaling. One of the biggest challenges before the NPP government will be to retain their support in future elections, especially the local government and provincial council polls slated for 2025.