Sri Lanka: Democracy and Its

Necessary Discontents

This therefore is
the SLFPs DUNF moment. Like the DUNF, Mahinda & Co is unlikely to win more than 10% of the vote.
And if there is a post-election haemorrhaging, the flow is likely to be from Mahinda Rajapaksas rump
faction to the official SLFP and not the other way around.

..the politician who claims that his administration is perfect is a tyrant. Timothy Ferris (The Science of
Liberty)
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
( April 19, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Eight hundred years ago Englands King John gave his
unwilling consent to Magna Carta. The Great Charter offered a modicum of protection from arbitrary royal
power to free men. In that time free men were few and far between, amounting to no more than a quarter
of Englands population.
In todays democratic world free man is every citizen. Democracys health depends to a large extent on
how democratic these citizens are. If most citizens value their rights and freedoms, democracy will survive
and thrive. If most citizens yearn for the yoke of a strong leader, not even the most democratic constitution
will succeed in saving democracy.
Democracy is neither uniform nor immutable. It is not a finished product, a final destination made of
unchanging stone. It is a work-in-progress, an endless experiment. In fact, its ability to survive also
depends on its capacity to evolve with changing times.
This then is the complex context in which the 19th Amendment (expected to be debated in parliament on
April 20th) can be best understood. Not as a panacea or an eternal solution, but as yet another experiment
at coming up with a more suitable form of government for Sri Lanka that is.

Sri Lankas version of executive presidential system has manifestly failed to achieve many of its key aims. It
has often worked against democracy, created instability and encouraged rampant corruption and
unforgivable inefficiency (in this sense the Weliamuna Report on Sri Lankan Airlines makes salutary
reading). But its most deadly malaise is an inborn tendency to encourage despotic dreams on the part of
politicians (especially those at the helm of affairs). Presidents begin to act as if they are uncrowned kings,
the modern day heirs of the countrys ancient monarchs. When their acolytes begin to hail them as kings,
disaster follows. Perhaps it is not quite accidental that executive presidency has worked for (rather than
against) democracy mostly in countries without monarchical pasts. The obvious exception to this possible
rule is France, but Frances history also includes the decisive (and repeated) rejection of monarchy and a
popularly acclaimed act of regicide.
In Sri Lanka the dangers of allowing all power to be concentrated in the hands of a single individual became
more than clear in the last several years. The Rajapaksa disaster alone calls for a multi-polar system where
power is diffused and devolved. Sri Lanka needs a democratic system of governance with proper checks and
balances, which can impede the president or the prime minister from amassing too much power. A majority
of Lankans obviously comprehended the need for such a change, which was why they voted out Mahinda
Rajapakasa and voted in Maithripala Sirisena.
If the victories of 1970 and 1977 could be interpreted as popular consent for constitutional transformations,
so can the victory of 2015 even more so. Unlike in 1970 or 1977, the main plank of Maithripala Sirisenas
electoral platform was constitutional change in general and the transformation of the executive presidential
system in particular. His victory therefore has to be taken as a vote for a new system of governance. Given
the genesis of his presidency, President Sirisenas task is not to perpetuate the existing system but to act as
the main agent of change.
19th Amendment, Flawed but Indispensable
To paraphrase Bertold Brecht (A Worker Reads History), Maithripala Sirisena won the presidential
election, but he did not win it alone. He won the Presidency thanks to the most diverse political coalition in
the history of Sri Lanka.
The UPFAs electoral base had been eroding steadily from April 2010, and by November 2015 it hovered
around the 50% mark. But the then opposition could not have succeeded in pushing the UPFA below this
watermark without the Maithripala Sirisena candidacy. Mr. Sirisena therefore was indispensable to
January 8th victory, but he could not have won it alone. Alone, or dependent solely on SLFP/UPFA
breakaways, he would have been defeated roundly by Mahinda Rajapaksa. The victory of January 8th
would have been impossible without the UNPs effort and the UNPs vote. But even Mr. Sirisena and the
UNP, on their own could not have defeated the Rajapaksa juggernaut. Far more was needed, from Tamil,
Upcountry Tamil and Muslim parties to the JVP, from Rev. Sobhitha Thero to the Bar Association, from
disillusioned soldiers to dissenting civil society, from first time voters to floating voters.

The victory of January 8th truly had many fathers; indeed it could not have happened without multiple
fathers. Its paternity cannot be monopolised by any one individual, party or organisation.
Power in todays Sri Lanka is more diffused than ever in history, because of this uniquely broadbased
nature of January 8th victory. And though no single individual or party holds all reins of power, the country
is running smoothly. There is no bifurcation, collapse or anarchy, except in the fevered imagination of
feverish Rajapaksa supporters. The calm, quiet, ordinary present proves that stability is not dependent on
power-concentration. And thanks to this diffusion of real power, the process of enacting the 19th
Amendment has become a qualitatively more inclusive and therefore more democratic exercise than any
previous exercises in constitution-making/amending, apart from the 17th Amendment.
Unchanging truths and infallible solutions belong in the province of religion. There are no Enlightened
Ones or Gods in politics; just fallible humans who struggle with better or worse policies. The 19th
Amendment is not perfect. It is not supposed to be that. What it should be measured against is not some
utopian ideal, but our really existing system of governance. And going by that yardstick, it is potentially
more democratic, more able to protect the rights of the people and curb the abuses of the rulers, more likely
to bring about intelligent, sensible and efficient governance.
The 19th Amendment is aimed at correcting the power-imbalances created by the 1978 Constitution and
made infinitely worse by the 18th Amendment. And in a turn of affairs which is as grotesque as it is
hypocritical, the selfsame parliamentarians who condemned the 1978 Constitution as tyrannical but voted
for the anti-democratic 18th Amendment like so many lambs are decrying the democratising 19th
Amendment, in the name of democracy.
Given where we are constitutionally, those who oppose the 19th Amendment in the name of democracy
clearly belong in the Orwellian universe where war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
They are no more democratic than China is socialist.
There is no perfect government, there never was and never will be outside of myths and legends. There are
no perfect constitutions or constitutional amendments either. All we know is that the existing system is
unsafe in multiple ways. The 19th Amendment will resolve some of the problems created by the existing
system. But it will have its own flaws. And someday, it too can be amended or abandoned, for something
better. That too is a mark of democracy, the right to keep what works and dump what does not.
Born Free and Yearning for the Rajapaksa Yoke
Rousseau famously wrote, Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains (Social Contract). Not every
freeborn citizen values freedom. Some people do not want to be free. For these sufferers of politicalagoraphobia, bondage and not freedom is the natural state.
Under Mahinda Rajapaksa, the balance of power within the state and the government shifted strategically

in favour of the Executive President, the Ruling Family and their coterie. This transformation of democracy
into its opposite from within went hand in hand with another change, in public beliefs and values.
Just as democracy needs democratic citizens, despotism requires obedient subjects. It is no accident that
Rajapaksa propaganda sought to create a collective mindset which harked back to our monarchical past and
equated national security and wellbeing with the existence of a Hero-King.
Authoritarianism is not a function of geopolitical location but of historical time. Today, the yearning to be
free is not a Western yearning but a universal human one. The outcome of the presidential election
demonstrated that a majority of Lankans share this yearning. But this reality is beyond the comprehension
of Mahinda Rajapaksa who still lives in his echo chamber, where he only hears what he wants to hear the
hosannas of an adoring audience, most of them brought to his house or to other meeting places in hired
buses.
The UPFA has a majority in parliament, but that majority does not reflect current political or electoral
reality, but a politico-electoral map which has been rendered obsolete by times and tides. The UNP is in a
minority, but if an election is held now, the UNP will emerge the single largest party. The UPFA will come
second, and a not very strong second if the attempt by Mahinda & Co to break up the SLFP succeeds.
There is a pithy Sinhala saying which can be translated inadequately as The departing devil breaks the ricewashing pot on its way out (Yana yaka koraha bindagene yanawa). That is what Mr. Rajapaksa and his
supporters are doing. Only someone who is naive to the point of idiocy would believe that Maithripala
Sirisena would want Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister. Mahinda & Co would know this. The actual
purpose of the Bring Back Mahinda as Prime Minister campaign is to hoodwink ordinary SLFPers and
create the largest possible schism in the SLFP. As a website associated with parliamentarian Wimal
Weerawansa (Lanka c News) reported, plans are ready for Mahinda Rajapaska to contest the next
parliamentary election from a new front. The real politico-electoral aim of Mahinda & Co would be to grab
a huge chunk of the SLFPs vote base, win more seats than the official SLFP and, based on that victory,
mount a coup to regain power first in the party and then nationally.
This therefore is the SLFPs DUNF moment. Like the DUNF, Mahinda & Co is unlikely to win more than
10% of the vote. And if there is a post-election haemorrhaging, the flow is likely to be from Mahinda
Rajapaksas rump faction to the official SLFP and not the other way around.
The fact that the latest Mahinda Rajapaksa drama will be more comedy than tragedy does not mean eternal
safety for Lankan democracy. There is always a possibility of some other leader or party trying to emulate
the Rajapaksa way to eternal rule. The best antidote for this would be to ensure that neither the president
nor the prime minister has too much power. The 19th Amendment seems to fit the bill, especially after the
changes mandated by a newly assertive and independent judiciary.
But constitutions alone cannot save democracy. A democracy cannot survive if the populace succumbs to
servility, either through fear or for self-gain or out of conviction of ones own unworthiness to be the equal

of the ruling power. Lankan democracy can be safe only so long as we the people are committed to it, value
our rights and freedoms and do not regard our leaders as infallible super-beings. To paraphrase Mahatma
Gandhi, we must be the change we want to see in Sri Lanka.
Posted by Thavam