By Rajan Philips –

Rajan Philips

The three Ps in Sri Lankan politics are each in a different pod. The protesters are standing tall as protest keeps spreading. Parliament is more divided than united in its responses to the protest. The SLPP government MPs, including the 41 independents, are still playing pathetic survival games. After days of dithering, the JVP stormed its way back into reckoning with an impressive three-day march last week from Beruwala to Colombo. But the JVP is unable to take its momentum from the streets to stir up parliament into any cohesive responsive. The SJB bestirred itself to present a bold and clear-cut constitutional amendment bill that would change the mode of election and the powers of the Executive President. Alas, it was immediately distracted by a competing 21A bill drafted by Wijeydasa Rajapaksha, a national list MP and one of many constitutional clowns in the country.

As for the third ‘P’, the President, he is neither seen nor heard. He made a fool of himself on Monday when he ill-advisedly appointed a cabinet of inexperienced nobodies. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa allegedly boycotted the appointment because the President rebuffed the PM’s request to keep recycling senior SLPP MPs as Ministers. Even the Mahanayaka Theras would seem to have had enough of the ongoing presidential antics. “The new cabinet which was appointed recently will not help resolve the present economic and political crisis,” the Theras said in a statement in which they also threatened to “issue a Sangha Convention” if the President and Parliament did not get their act together soon enough for the sake of the country.

There have been talks among political watchers about the endgame for the current standoff between the protesters and the President. Quite a few observers saw an endgame in which the protesters get tired and go home, while the President stays put in power despite the calls for him to go home. After three weeks there are few signs of the standoff ending anytime soon. The President is staying put but is getting weaker and irrelevant with every passing day. The President and the Prime Minister would also seem to be working at cross-purposes to save their respective hides. The Daily Mirror described the family tiff with its headline on Thursday (April 21): “Tug of war breaks out between GR and MR.”

Whether they are working in tandem or at cross-purposes, the President and the Prime Minister are long past – not only their usefulness but also their effectiveness. The President, the Prime Minister and whoever is running the government with them have tried every trick to appease the protesters and hold on to power, but nothing is working. They are incapable of imposing anything punitive on the protesters, and there is nothing that they can do that will satisfy the protesters except their resignations. They are contributing nothing to either the talks at the IMF or the tasks at home. Neither of them nor anyone else on their political entourage has any credibility with the IMF. In Washington, at the IMF, it was left to India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to make special pleading on behalf of Sri Lanka for urgent financial assistance.

Sack of Potatoes

The real tragedy is that parliament has singularly failed to rise to the occasion by its failure to reach a consequential level of consensus among its MPs. For all practical effect and purpose, MPs are behaving as though they are, to recall a famous description in a different context, “formed by the simple addition of homonymous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes.” You can understand why the collectively more intelligent protesters are calling for the sacking of the collectively moronic sack of 225 potatoes!

What seems to have been lost last week, in the midst of games that MPs started playing when parliament reconvened after the New Year and Easter holidays, is the central message of the protest movement calling for the resignation of the President and the Prime Minister. It has been suggested that the SJB’s draft 21^st Constitutional Amendment Bill, inasmuch as it calls for the ‘abolition’ of the Executive Presidency (EP), subsumes the protesters demand for the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President. Without getting into semantics, it is fair to suggest the two (resignation and abolition) could have been kept separate as a matter of parliamentary tactic.

The SJB could have pursued as parallel measures both a No Confidence Motion (NCM) against the President under Article 42 of the Constitution, as suggested by Nihal Jayawickrama, and the 21A bill as has now been proposed. An NCM will have to go through immediately and will likely attract sufficient number of MPs for its passage by a simple majority. Regardless of what effect it has on the President, an NCM will immediately bring parliament into alignment with the protest movement. Without it, parliament will become irrelevant and the prospect of containing protest energies within constitutional possibilities will be seriously impaired if not irreparably damaged. There could be more replications of Rambukkana, and things can get out of control very quickly.

As for the 21^st Amendment Bill, it will require more homework by the SJB among parliamentarians to assemble the requisite two-thirds majority, even if the notion that a referendum also will be required is dispensed with, as has been persuasively argued by Dr. Nihal Jayawickrama and more peremptorily dismissed by Dr. Colvin R de Silva when JRJ was still President. Needless to say, the application in Sri Lanka, of the Indian constitutional doctrine of ‘basic structure’, for subjecting the removal EP to a referendum is wholly inappropriate given the political genesis of the JRJ Constitution, not to mention its clear provisions for referendums.

At the same time, intellectual fearmongering has already started that any move to alter the mode of election and powers of EP will trigger a military and/or Sinhala Buddhist backlash. This is irresponsible prophesizing in search of vainglorious self-fulfillment. The same goes for the related argument that EP and 13A are inseparable Siamese twins, which is pure nonsense. Another nonsense in this genre is the argument linking political progressivism and presidential system, apparently based on a reading of Latin American politics. Some reading, same nonsense!

The SJB will have to be concerned not so much about friendly firing from the sidelines, but finding consensus within parliament. Former army chief Sarath Fonseka is not at all keen about abolishing the presidency and is even rumored to be eyeing the position of interim Executive President. Ranil Wickremesinghe is not at all keen about sending the President and Prime Minister home, because without them he will not have political relevance or audience. He even claimed in parliament in response to Dinesh Gunawardena that it is he (RW) who got the SJB to delay the NCM against the government until the Minister of Finance reports to parliament on the IMF talks in Washington. Why?

Nonetheless, if a vote is held on 21A both Wickremesinghe and Fonseka will vote in support of the amendment. But the SJB cannot make any headway on any measure in parliament until and unless it is able to find common ground with the JVP. The same goes for the JVP and its aloofness from the SJB. The SJB needs the support of more MPs than it has to achieve anything in parliament. The JVP while it is good at punching above its parliamentary weight, its punches will not be effective unless they are for a common initiative.

The SJB and JVP acting in tandem will also force rethinking and realignment among the 41 Independents. Once shifting and realignment starts, the positive infection will spread. A good majority of potatoes will become real MPs. And parliament will come into greater alignment with protesting people. Parliament must be able to assert itself against the dysfunctional incumbent President before it is able to abolish the mode of election and the powers of EP. Up till then, the political stalemate will continue and the economic hardships will get worse.