Second-rate 19A better than no 19A

History will award Ranil-Sirisena 100-days a Pass without Distinction

Pass; but could have done better

by Kumar David-April 18, 2015, 12:00 pm

If one were to make a fair and sober evaluation of the Ranil-Sirisena (R&S;
the order is intentional) administration, the judgement of history would be
that it was not a failure but it achieved less than it could and should have.
The big achievement of course was that it happened at all - it was a
vehicle that by its mere happening ended the abominable Mahinda
Rajapaksa proto-dictatorship. The credit goes to thousands, including Ranil
and Sirisena, who stuck out their necks and fought abuse of entrenched
power and astronomical amounts of money. January 8 in itself was the
apogee of this achievement. Further achievements are the change of
provincial governors and the dismissal of a rat donned in the mantle of a
CJ, a malevolent UGC Chair and rotten eggs in the state and corporate
sectors. The Weliamuna Board of Inquiry into corruption in Sri Lanka
Airlines is an exemplar of more that could have been done but was not.
High marks must be awarded for the suffused but significant change in the
long prevalent mood of Sinhalese-Tamil hostility which has been noticeably
alleviated. And finally, President Sirisena and his charming and dignified
wife have enhanced Lankas image in the foreign capitals they visited.

No one can achieve much more than circumstances permit. The

impediment confronting R&S is that the balance of power was only slightly
in their favour. Sirisenas winning margin was modest and he polled less
than MR among the muscular Sinhalese majority. Problematically the R&S
combo does not command a parliamentary majority. On the subjective
side, R&Ss character weaknesses (aversion to mobilisation, abstaining
from risk taking), poor judgement (choice of Defence Secretary and
Governor of Central Bank) and the silence of the radical and leftist allies
who should have rebuked Candidate Sirisena when he reneged on
abolishing the Executive Presidency, all contributed to the under
achievements of the administration. The two big shortcomings, nay let us
call a spade a spade and say failures, of this government are first that 19A
is a disappointment, and second that R&S have not set about
systematically uprooting the Mafia State per se but confined themselves
only to exposing a few egregious cases actually only one, Sri Lankan
Airlines.
19A: Todays flop, tomorrows hazard
I am a puzzled that no other
commentator in the print or
electronic media, as far as I know,
has picked up on the terrible
Achilles of 19A; its design for the
coexistence of two equally strong
centres of state/governmental
power. I am puzzled that no one
else perceives that future
constitutional deadlock is staring
Lanka in the face. The system
proposed in 19A has been
compared with, but it is worse
than the French system of government. In France too president and
parliament (National Assembly) are separately elected by direct mass
suffrage. When the two are from different parties and ideologies, not much
gets done in government. France has a long (albeit four times interrupted)
democratic tradition going back to 1789, hence De Gaulles post-1958 Fifth
Republic has survived through compromises. But when crisis arrives in
Lanka it will be destructive partisan attrition.
Conflict is softened by the existence of the French Senate with powers

similar to the National Assembly. Legislation may be submitted or

amended in either house. A Senate with muscle can ease conflict between
president and parliament. Senators are elected by 150,000 Regional,
Departmental (these are smaller regional units) and city councillors,
mayors and members of the National Assembly. It has bargaining power; it
is not a shadow or a phantom. In Lanka the Council of State (CoS)
proposed in 19A is a feeble spook endowed merely with an advisory role.
Over 80% of its members will be dummies nominated by the prime
minister and the leader of the opposition.
It is a pity that there has been no discussion of what will be major
impediments to the stability of the state in time to come the creation of
two equi-potential power centres in president and parliament and an
emasculated CoS. Nevertheless a lousy 19A is better than no-19A if the
alternative is to allow the current constitution to survive unchanged.
Repealing 18A, reintroducing presidential term limits and bringing back the
checks and controls envisaged in 17A are small mercies worth two cheers
though the president now stands taller than in the Gazetted version of
19A.
The ruling of the Supreme Court stripping the prime minister of certain
powers over the Cabinet, unless approved at a referendum, is impeccable.
The supporters of constitutional change landed in a mess by
accommodating Sirisenas backtracking on his pledge to abolish the
Executive Presidency (EP). As father of the Single Issue (abolish EP),
Common Candidate (this has been successful), strategy, I find myself
unhappily vindicated. After the Supreme Court ruling the government with
a neither-here-nor-there muddle on its hands naturally has funked a
referendum. A single minded strategy to abolish EP and restore the
essence of 17A (18A falls by the wayside) would have been doable. The
forces that would have mobilised if campaign promises were kept were
substantial and a referendum could have been won. It is of course certain
that the Supreme Court would have insisted on a referendum for the
complete abolition of the executive presidency.
I will move on after one tangential comment. I do not think President
Sirisena will precipitate a conflict with parliament if after the next election
the SLFP fails to secure a majority. He is not overtly power hungry and has
said he will not seek a second term maybe he will keep his word this
time. The perils emerge later, after Sirisena, after the Sirisena-Ranil
honeymoon.

The mafia state plods on

The electronic media is replete with salacious humour after the Weliamuna
BoI report. One says the airline should re-brand itself Airborne Bordello for
Highflying Hookers; another asks if the Big Boy dipped in the honey pots
too. In all this spice and levity two important concerns are in danger of
being lost. Firstly, so far as cases of transgression go, the airline example
is but one of many and though the most lurid, not the worst case of
financial sleaze. The country has been purloined of far greater amounts in
the Highways Ministry (expressway projects) and in schemes handled by
Basil. It is not the Weliamuna BoI report, important as it is, that should be
our focus but the other, bigger cases that have not been addressed. The
second point is a bigger picture. These phenomena are studded into a
nationwide statist network of fraud and violence of high leaders in cahoots
with an army of cronies the Mafia State.
The Ranil-Sirisena government has not taken on these two big challenges
and been content with a piecemeal approach to some politically less
sensitive cases; that is cases not involving the three younger Rajapaksa
siblings (the Speaker is not a party to any alleged criminal offence). One or
a combination of three reasons are ascribed to this hesitation; there was/is
a tacit understanding among leaders not to hound each other, or R&S lack
the guts and balls to go for a big kill in circumstances where their power is
constrained by political reality, or thirdly maybe they need to sustain a
working relationship with sections of the SLFP to secure votes for the
passage of, an albeit now castrated 19A, by the requisite two thirds
parliamentary majority.
For one or a combination of these reasons the government is fighting the
corruption issue with one hand tied behind its back and it is not motivated
to make a broad frontal attack on the Mafia State. It made a wide platform
of election promises that it cannot deliver within 100 days; instead it
should have focussed on an Abolish EP slogan, winning a referendum, and
dissolving parliament; economic issues, cost of living and the national
question should have come afterwards. Yes this is too simply stated; of
course there would have been some mix of targets, but the focus on
abolishing EP should have been retained. Experience now shows that this
would have needed less than 100 days. If drafting new electoral bill was
included, only a little more time was necessary not including new
electoral delimitation and preparing registers which together take about a

year to perfect.
I am persuaded that history will not judge Ranil and Sirisenas 100 days
too harshly, but it will also mark it down as opportunity missed on some
long-term issues.
Posted by Thavam