The 100-Day Question: Will President Sirisena

dissolve parliament and call the Rajapaksa

bluff?

by Rajan Philips-April 25, 2015

If there is ever a time for political leadership to act in disregard of
consensus, it is now. There was a time in Sri Lankan politics when that
master rhetorician Colvin R. de Silva presaged the governing style of the
SLFP-LSSP-CP United Front as one that would be "characterized not by
consensus but by leadership." Dr. Colvins foretelling was in anticipation of
the massive United Front election victory in 1970. It turned out to be illadvised at that time. But it is thoroughly appropriate at the present time.
In politics, consensus is the preferred means to a desired end, but it is not
an end itself. President Sirisena has the power to act and dissolve
parliament and let the people elect a new parliament to end the current
political uncertainty in parliament and in the country. Will he do it? That is
the 100-Day question. And there will not be much else to talk about the
100 Days if parliament does not pass the 19th Amendment on Tuesday,
the day after tomorrow.
President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe obtained a
mandate from the people on January 8 to change the constitution in a
substantial manner. The 19th Amendment is the instrument to fulfill that
mandate. It is an embodiment of the peoples will, of political compromise
and judicial endorsement. There has never been anything so consensual
like 19A, before in Sri Lankas constitutional politics. If the current
parliament cannot muster the requisite two-thirds majority to pass the
amendment, it deserves to be sent packing to the people. The President
will have no alternative but to dissolve the truant parliament and call for a
general election. Anything less will be an affront to the sovereignty of the

people and a mockery of the constitutional provision affirming its

inalienability.
The remnants of the Rajapaksa regime in parliament and outside are
bluffing. Bluffing, bullying, disrupting parliament and disobeying court
orders are the last resort of politicians who have abused power, run afoul
of the law, and who do not want to face the people in a free and fair
election. In parliament, Nimal Siripala de Silva is trying to be too clever by
half for his own endowments. GL Peiris, the long lost seed fallen on hard
Rajapaksa rock, is trying hard for a moral rebirth, but in a crooked way.
Between them, they are trying to pretend that they are saving the
Jayewardene constitution from the machinations of his Party, the UNP! The
19th Amendment is not a UNP (or Ranils) off-spring. It is the outcome of
the abolition (of the executive presidency) movement launched by Sobitha
Thero and his band of constitutional reformers led by Jayampathy
Wickremaratne. They drafted the basic outline of the 19th Amendment
long before Maithripala Senanayake defected from the Rajapaksa
government to become the common opposition candidate.
If at all, as the common opposition candidate, Maithripala Sirisena diluted
the abolitionist position in order to accommodate the JHU who did not want
to abolish the presidential system, but retain it with reduced powers. Much
of the confusion over the 19th Amendment Bill is the result of trying to
reach a compromise between abolishing the executive presidential system,
and attenuating it. The final outcome, vetted by the Supreme Court, is not
the perfect product but a significant correction to the current constitutional
contraption the unholy cross between the original Jayewardene
framework and the recent Rajapaksa deformations. 19A represents the
choice between: EITHER staying mired in the current contraption and its
accompaniments, viz. abuse of power, corruption and embezzlement; OR,
moving forward with a positively modified constitution providing
reasonable checks and balances, to end corruption and achieve good
governance. The (Kierkegaardian) choice (between unethical and ethical)
cannot be clearer.
What will happen on Tuesday?
President Sirisena, in the course of his address to the nation on Thursday
evening to mark the end of his first 100 days in office, called upon all
parliamentarians to unanimously vote for the 19th Amendment, which
finally is scheduled to be debated tomorrow and voted on Tuesday. Earlier

in the day, addressing a UNP meeting, the Prime Minister is reported to

have gone into an aggressive mode and warned that MPs who do not vote
for the 19th Amendment will be swept away at the polls by the people.
Brave words are still better coming late than never. The same day, the
SLFP Central Committee (CC) issued a statement announcing its decision
to vote for 19A in parliament.
The SLFP statement caught me by surprise because only a day before
Nimal Siripala de Silva, the majority leader of the opposition, was insisting
that a new (19th) amendment bill incorporating the determinations of the
Supreme Court should be presented in parliament and referred to the
Supreme Court for verification before it could be debated and voted on.
Before that GL Peiris was making a nuisance of himself by carping against
changes being introduced at the Committee stage. Even after the Central
Committee decision, GL Peiris has been reported as saying that although
the SLFP accepts 19A in principle, the Party will be moving amendments to
the Bill in Parliament before the final vote. Go figure! And this comes after
yet another Party Leaders meeting last week, when the government
reportedly agreed to delete the provisions in the Bill that the SLFP was
objecting to.
It would be great if the 19th Amendment bill is carried unanimously, but
no one will count on it. Achieving a two-thirds majority that is required for
the bills passage would itself be a singular achievement, but nothing can
be taken for granted given the bluffing opposition and, so far, pussyfooting
government. The question is what will the government do, if the
amendment does not secure a two-thirds majority, or the opposition once
again thwarts the bill from being debated and voted on April 27 and 28?
There is only one answer: Dissolve parliament and call for a general
election.
While it is imperative that the President must show leadership and dissolve
parliament immediately if the 19th Amendment is not passed with the
requisite majority, it will also be ideal for him to dissolve parliament even if
the Amendment is duly passed by Parliament. However, there appears to
some consensus about achieving electoral reforms after the passage of
19A, but before dissolving parliament. If that is so, it might be worthwhile
to delay dissolution until the electoral reforms are in place. But it would be
a grave mistake to let the SLFP opposition delay the passage of 19A until
the electoral reform bill is also ready for the vote. Nor should the
operationalization of 19A be made conditional upon the enactment of

electoral reforms. In either case, the opposition should not be allowed to

get away with its bluff.
There are about half a dozen different proposals for electoral reforms
floating around, including a draft 20th Amendment on Electoral Reforms
currently prepared by the SLFP. The President is reported to have
presented his own proposals for electoral reform to the Cabinet of
Ministers. The Tamil and Muslim political parties and the Left Parties have
also had discussions and produced another set of proposals for electoral
reform. Going by the experience of the 19th Amendment, can we expect
the parliamentarians to act rationally and agree upon electoral reforms?
Or, is it more likely that the opposition MPs will go on abusing
parliamentary privilege to stage protests inside parliament against the
legitimate and lawful investigations of corruption allegations of the high
flyers of the old regime? Again, the President must show leadership and
dissolve parliament immediately to prevent the Rajapaksa cronies from
degrading parliament in defence of the Rajapaksas.
In fairness, no one should be considered guilty unless charges are laid and
proven in court in accordance with the law. But the burden of proof is not,
and should not be, on the government as has been mistakenly suggested.
That burden must rest solely on the law enforcement agencies - the police,
the investigating commission and the prosecutors. These agencies should,
and should be allowed, to act independent of the government and even the
parliament, as well as the President. Even the Rajapaksas deserve a truly
fair process, even though they broke every rule and bent every norm to
get rid of their opponents, including a Chief Justice and an Army
Commander among others. But the process must go on, without being
sabotaged by those within the government and disrupted by those in the
opposition. That would be good government, for starters.
Posted by Thavam