By Austin I Pullé –

Austin I Pullé

Sri Lanka has been in the news, again for the wrong reasons. For the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, one Commonwealth country has imposed sanctions on not on one but two former presidents of a fellow Commonwealth country. Rather than focussing one’s anger about this shame to the country exclusively on these individuals, the focus should be shifted to the legislature whose spineless members enabled the looting, corruption and despotic violation of human rights that occurred during the watch of these presidents. It was the legislature that emboldened, through the passage of the 20th Amendment, a former president, obviously suffering from delusions that he was a modern day pharaoh, to proclaim that his word had the same force of a written circular! If the country’s constitutional history is a guide, the proposed new constitution will enable more of the same, and any changes will be purely cosmetic devoid of meaningful change. Such changes will not meet the urgent bottom-up demands from citizens of all segments of Sri Lankan society for a true system change. In short, any tinkering with constitutional provisions that would produce the same bunch of uneducated, rent seeking, privilege addicted individuals and nepo babies in parliament will doom the country to continue on its downward spiral. 

If the educational and ethical standards of parliamentarians are to be improved, the profile of the average parliamentarian; uneducated, uncouth, lacking principles, prone to violence and hooliganism, tardy attendance at parliament and addicted to mind boggling perks and privileges, must be changed. The vicious chain of causation that produces these outcomes must be destroyed. The crying need of the hour is a legislature consisting of honourable, clean, educated persons who will recognize that their primary duty is to the country and not to their party leader or to their bank balances.

Systemic change requires that the root causes of Sri Lanka’s chronic dysfunctionality be identified and eliminated. One such root cause, in fact a taproot, is the existing system which allows party leaders to appoint incompetent, corrupt, and uneducated persons to contest elections. The only non-negotiable requirement for such appointments has been and is a slavish obedience to the party leader. This and associated problems need to be addressed before there can be any talk of systemic change. 

Without the following, there won’t be any systemic change: (a) The task of selecting candidates should be taken away from party leaders and be entrusted to broad-based grass roots party units; (b) All the existing perks and privileges, the most outlandish that exists in any democratic country, provided to MPs should be forthwith abolished; (c) Asset disclosures and other means of weeding out corrupt or corruption prone individuals should be mandatory; (d) Minimum educational qualifications including an O’Level pass in English should be imposed; (e) Following a general or Presidential election, the party leaders of the party with the second highest votes in an election, should resign and be replaced by another person; (f) Nominations must accord with term limits and a mandatory retirement age; (g) Abolition of the National List or a National List that serves its true purpose; (h) Clergy of any religion, and those convicted of any offence involving moral turpitude (regardless of pending appeals) should be  ineligible for nomination; and (i) candidates must provide the Elections Commission certificates from the tax authorities that all tax due and payable have been paid, the utility bills have been paid, and that government property in their possession for terms that have expired has been relinquished. This must be an obligation that continues during their term in the legislature. Satisfying this requirement annually and an attendance record (not merely marking attendance) for 50% of parliamentary sittings should be a precondition to voting in parliament.

a) Intra-Party Democracy, Party Leadership & Candidate Nomination.

The task of selecting candidates should be taken away from party leaders and be entrusted to broad-based grass roots party units.

In democracies diverse political actors and interest are organised into cells or groups (political parties) on the basis of which they effectively participate in the larger political process, principally in elections. Sri Lanka has had a long history of political parties representing a broad spectrum of interests. The major political parties have had varying degrees of success in articulating differing interests and aggregating them to produce election manifestos. But a healthy and vibrant democracy cannot coexist with a corrupt dictatorial party leadership. This is why Sri Lanka’s democracy largely consists of staging elections, derided justly as an auction of non-existent resources, and cannot be called a vibrant and functioning democracy despite a prolix human rights chapter in the Constitution which is observed mainly in the breach.    

The party leader’s interest is to have parliamentarians beholden to the leader, and in most cases demonstrate unquestioning servility. This has two important consequences. First, many people of integrity do not want to compromise that integrity by swearing fealty to a party leader whom they might privately despise as a mediocrity. The result? The available pool consists of the dregs that do not belong in a legislature. Second, the shockingly poor quality of parliamentarians proves that party leaders cannot be trusted to field the best candidates. The leader alone must be seen to be all wise, well-read, and well educated above the others in the party.

Pericles in his funeral oration spoke of Athens, the birthplace of democracy, where “when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit.” In Sri Lanka, it is not merit but the willingness to treat base contemptible figures as gods that opens the door for public service. 

Many in social media, frustrated by the nature of parliamentarians, vent their anger and frustration on the voting public whom they call stupid cattle whose vote can be bought with a bottle of cheap arrack and a packet of rice. While there may be some truth in this exasperated reproach, it overlooks the fact that the voters have little choice because the candidate has been foisted on them by party bosses. 

In America, who will represent a party at an election is decided by a preliminary election known as a “Primary”. Such a system is too expensive and will generate a ton of election violence for it to be of any use in Sri Lanka. The UK model, however, can be adapted and used to break the dictatorial grip that party leaders have over the nomination process. 

In the UK, the major parties have different procedures for selecting candidates but the broad objective of intra-party democracy in nominations is achieved. For example, constituency associations in the Conservative party select their constituency’s candidates. Constituency Labour Parties select the general election candidates using a procedure agreed upon by the National Executive Committee. The local party members of the Liberal Party choose the particular candidate who will represent the party in an election. In none of these parties is there an omnipotent boss drunk on his own power who decides who will and who will not represent the party.

b) Abolition of Lavish Perks and Privileges: All the existing perks and privileges, the most outlandish that exists in any democratic country, provided to MPs should be forthwith abolished. If one scatters pieces of expensive cheeses around on the floor of one’s dwelling, a swarm of rodents will invade. This is an apt metaphor for what happens presently in parliament.

It is alleged that one of the first things that the President did when he entered Parliament through the National List as an MP was to avail himself of a permit to import a duty free vehicle. If the scion of an educated and cultured family can find such a vulgar perk so attractive, what chance is there of the average politician who cannot afford to buy a three wheeler with his own money resisting the impulse to buy with funds provided by a mudalali a Porsche SUV?  Such perks and privileges are the opium of the otherwise unemployable. The idea that politics as a service and a sacrifice should be the non-negotiable Excluded must be those whose only wish is to “serve the country” by gorging on publicly funded benefits, receiving ethanol importing licenses, licenses to operate bars, and otherwise enriching themselves in so many ways.

The benchmarks of parliamentarian perks and privileges should be either selected from Singapore or the UK. Without this fundamental change, there won’t be any type of systemic change and the only change will be that there will be a different generation of rodents replacing their forbears. 

c) Asset disclosures and other means of weeding out corrupt or corruption prone individuals should be mandatory. The country desperately needs to attract different types of people to work in government. Reducing the opportunities to engage in corruption would encourage participation by persons more focused on serving the public interest rather than pursuing their own squalid goals. In this respect, one way of cleaning the Augean Stables is to vest public procurement and tax adjustments in an independent procurement commission. Unsolicited bids and sole source procurement must be prohibited and every government contract must contain a mandatory representation that no commissions or payments related to the project other than those disclosed in the document have been made or promised. 

Corruption is not a problem confined to Sri Lanka. Citizens of many countries sick of corruption have secured anti-corruption safeguards. One such reform is a comprehensive disclosure law that requires government officials to regularly declare their income and assets. Disclosure laws must force politicians to publicly document their wealth on a regular basis, including sources of income and the structure of their wealth and liabilities. This disclosure law could also usefully be extended to cover heads of state owned enterprises, senior customs and tax officials, and senior law enforcement officials.

Disclosure laws help deter the abuse of public office for private gain. Similar to a tax audit, disclosures create a public record of where officials earn income and the types and value of assets they have accumulated over time. To work effectively, disclosure laws must force a move from a relatively opaque to a relatively open informational environment, and the RTI laws must be strengthened to achieve this.

By simplifying investigations, disclosures also lower the corruption-related utility of serving further in government. Using public office for financial gain in the future becomes less attractive if a paper trail of personal accounts throughout one’s time in office is made mandatory.

d) Minimum educational qualifications including an O’Level pass in English should be requirements to contest elections at all levels. A new constitution should require at least 2 A level passes of candidates as well as an O’level pass in English as qualifications for nomination.

Without a proper education, an MP cannot properly do her job. The lack of education on the majority of parliamentarians was evident in the passage of constitutional amendments. A slew of amendments granting powers to the President followed by a slew of amendments cutting down on the scope of such powers were voted for by the same bunch of people. Constitutional amendments are very important instruments meant to deal with the larger questions of the relationship of the branches of government to each other and to the sovereign people. As it is the People who are sovereign under Article 3 of the Constitution, amendments must be carefully scrutinized for any detrimental impact of such sovereignty. The Supreme Court has issued many judgments on constitutional questions and fundamental rights. More than a nodding acquaintance with the content of these decisions written in English is needed for any MP daring to consider proposed constitutional amendments. 

A requirement of an ordinary pass in English at O’level might leave many aspirants who desperately want to “serve the people” bereft but the country cannot afford MPs who are ignorant of the world language. Two anecdotes relating the late Lee Kwan Yew illustrate the importance of English. First, at an International Bar Association (“IBA”) meeting held at the Marina Bar Sands, Lee Kwan Yew was invited to give a talk. (His daughter in law, Lee Suet Fern, now bitterly estranged from her brother-in-law Prime Minister Lee and his family, was the head of the Singapore branch of the IBA.) During question time, a lawyer from China asked Mr. Lee what advice he would give to the people of China. The two word answer, “Learn English”, was the pithy advice given to a citizen from an incredibly rich civilization. Contrast this with the disempowering Sinhala Only leader, who arguably was Asia’s version of James I of England called the wisest fool in Christendom. If Lee’s advice can be given to the Chinese who hail from such an incredibly rich civilization with a rich tradition of Chinese literature, how much more should it apply to an insular culture like Sri Lanka with the principal language spoken by less than twenty million persons? Second, in an interview with the New Yorker, the late Mr. Lee said he never read any material without seeking out the implications of what he read for the future of Singapore. He read widely the leading English publications like The Economist, the FT, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His reticular activating system contributed to making Singapore what it is. Instead of asking what the Fed’s interest rate hike or the movement to ban gas stoves in the US means for the country, the default reticular activating system of many local parliamentarians is to be on the lookout for kickbacks, perks, and enriching friends and family that has brought Sri Lanka to its knees. 

Article 4 of the Constitution that defines the way the sovereignty of the People is distributed among the three branches of government. The legislature has been delegated the responsibility of enacting laws that govern the country and performing a separation of powers function of acting as a check on the executive. The basic rule of law norm is that a government should act according to the law and not to the whims of a person. Laws should be thoughtfully debated and enacted. Robots powered by artificial intelligence can do a better job that most parliamentarians in present day Sri Lanka. A well-read assembly of legislators who are aware of important topics such as basic economics, climate change, the environment, international law and international relations, the workings of global institutions such as WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank will deliver a much better product than what the arrogant morons who constitute the majority in parliament unleash on a helpless population. 

e) Following a general or Presidential election, the party leaders of the party with the second highest votes in an election, should resign and be replaced by another person.

The Conservative Party in the UK has seen leadership changes from Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and Sunak. Labour likewise has seen changes from Gordon Brown, Miliband, Corbyn, and Starmer. In Sri Lanka, despite defeat after defeat party leaders continue to head their parties. This seems to be a feature common to parties in South Asia.  One explanation is the personality cult and brand name recognition. For Sri Lanka, the most compelling explanation is that the party leader cannot be dislodged because the leader controls those voting on the leadership election. Party leaders have such an insidious grip on the party machinery which is filled to the gills with sycophants that they keep electing the same person as the leader. The unfortunate result is that this practice clogs the leadership pipeline. Apart from being on the lookout for leadership material and nurturing the potential of such persons, as is the practice in Singapore, party leaders are bent on crushing potential contenders who are seen as rivals. A future of the country in capable hands is the last thing on their minds.

Recently, Jacinda Arden, the PM of New Zealand resigned because she was burnt out. Nicola Sturgeon has likewise admitted that she lacks the stamina to continue as Scotland’s first minister. Compared to them, many Sri Lankan party leaders are burnt out cinders but they and their acolytes continue to infest the legislature.

The system of party leaders continuing to head the party despite multiple defeats results in a fetid stagnant swamp.  Individuals lack the grace to ride off to the sunset. Two former presidents now sit as ordinary MPs in parliament, and one was recently fined Rs.100 million for his reckless dereliction of duty in failing to stop the Easter Sunday bombings. The other has been scolded by his brother for not having the grace to retire gracefully. Sri Lanka needs to drain the swamp and allow a younger generation to emerge. Party leaders noted for their narcissism, a craving for flattery, cronyism, and a distinct lack of emotional generosity and empathy with the poor continue to head important political parties. Kent’s warning to Lear that “power to flattery bows” is empirically proven in Sri Lanka. An iconic depiction of this is the photograph of the former health minister, of magic water and Covid syrup fame, prostrated at the feet of the then president who looks as if he is receiving what is his due without upbraiding the woman and asking her to behave, at least for the sake of the country, with dignity and self-respect. Given such disgusting flattery, is it any surprise that party leaders continue to be limpets on the body politic? 

One can only imagine how the history of Sri Lanka could have been different if Sri Lanka had followed the example set in the UK about party leadership. 

Throughout its seventy-five years of independence, resignation by the leader of a defeated party would have paved the way for new and dynamic leadership. 

f) Nominations must accord with term limits and a mandatory retirement age. Article 4 envisages a parliament implicitly consisting of educated and youthful persons. Not a Jurassic Park! Term and age limits if established will be a pipeline for a new generation which will replace the bearded buffoon and others who continue in their same old ways. After being an MP for a total of ten years, no one could serve. Likewise a mandatory retirement age of 65 years is necessary. In order to promote gender equality, in 50% of the nominations, the party should promote candidates of both sexes 

California has enacted a term limits law for its elected officials. However, the Supreme Court held that this law cannot apply to federal representatives like senators and congresspersons from the state. The result, Senator Diane Feinstein aged 89 who should have been shunted off to an assisted living home two decades ago! Sri Lanka would do well to follow the term limits laws of jurisdictions such as California. 

g) Abolition of the National List or a National List that serves its true purpose;

The National List system should be abolished but if this cannot be done, it should fulfil its original purpose found in the origins of the Dominion Constitution. First, the national list that will be certified before an election must be the exclusive source by which unelected persons may enter parliament. Specifically, defeated candidates should be ineligible to slip into Parliament through the National List and nepo-babies like the Prime Minister’s sons should be ineligible. Second, only those selected from micro-ethnic communities such as Malays, Burghers, Veddhas, Dawoodi Bohras, Sindhis, should be eligible for inclusion. A parallel list of eminent professionals, academics and business leaders could also be considered. Appointment to Parliament should be strictly in the order of preference laid down in the list. Finally, it should be made crystal clear, despite it being patently clear under the existing constitution, that the right to nominate someone from the National List is lost if the nomination is not made within the one week window the commences with the Election Commissioner calling for nominations and which ends before the first sitting of the new parliament. 

h) Clergy of any religion, and those convicted of any offence involving moral turpitude (regardless of pending appeals) should be not eligible for nomination. A useful guideline should be “No politics in religion and No religion in politics.” The Vatican asked Robert Drinan SJ to resign from his congressional seat in Massachusetts. It is regrettable that no corresponding order has been given to monks. Article 9 of the Constitution obligates the state to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana. Does the state discharge this solemn duty by allowing monks to be involved in politics and engage in vituperative and dehumanizing rhetoric that has been standard fare? 

Buddhists in Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam have told the writer that in their countries monks are required to stay out of politics and they express astonishment at seeing the front rows of political platforms occupied by monks. One should not be surprised that the religious hardliners who rail against “unethical conversions” have little inclination to cleanse the monkhood of some prominent members whose behaviour and language mock the fundamental precepts of Buddhism. 

i) Candidates must provide the Elections Commission certificates from the tax authorities that all tax due and payable have been paid, the utility bills have been paid, and that government property in their possession for terms that have expired has been relinquished. This must be an obligation that continues during their term in the legislature. Satisfying this requirement annually and an attendance record (not merely marking attendance) for 50% of parliamentary sittings should be a precondition to voting in parliament.

In his oration, Pericles observed that “the secret of liberty is happiness and the secret of happiness is courage.” Many of the foreign funded NGOs, not willing to jeopardize their funding by attacking the blue eyed person favoured by their patrons, have cheated and broken faith with the Sri Lankan public. The likely postponement of local government elections and the capricious abuse of the Prevention of Terrorism Act have elicited not a whimper of protest from these entities. Hope now lies only with the brave young women and men of the Aragalaya who have demonstrated the courage to confront the sacred cows of ethno-nationalism, religious bigotry, and sycophancy in Sri Lanka society. Any hope of happiness for a benighted land will depend, not on the posturing of civil society groups fronting a foreign agenda, but on the re-emergence of courage by this idealistic group of young women and men.