Sirisena Cooray, who could be called the Basil Rajapaksa or
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of the Ranasinghe Premadasa era, once related an interested
story. He was speaking at a time when
Mahinda Rajapaksa was President and seemingly invincible. He was speaking about the decisions that had
to be made immediately after President Premadasa was assassinated. The following is the gist.
“I have two regrets.
The first was when it came to the Prime Minister’s post. There were many who wanted me to be the Prime
Minister. I said that in Parliament the
next in line was Ranil Wickremesinghe since he was the Leader of the House at
the time. I said I will concentrate on
party matters. Looking back I think I
made a mistake.
“The second was my inability to convince President D.B.
Wijetunga to hold the Presidential Election before the General Election. He would have had a tough battle but would
have pulled through. Maybe he was not
confident. So the General Election came
first. The SLFP-led coalition was able
to form a government but had just a one-member majority in Parliament. Had Wijetunga contested it would have been a
different story.”
D.B. Wijetunga is no longer around to tell us what he was
thinking at the time. Maybe he got it
wrong. Maybe he knew what the ‘risks’
were and went ahead. What we are left
with is what happened thereafter and to surmise about what could have happened
had he gone along with Sirisena’s suggestion and things had unfolded as
Sirisena believes they would have.
Perhaps something can be inferred from what Champika
Ranawaka told some young political associates who were part of the Janatha Mithuro
group the day after Chandrika Kumaratunga formed a Government in 1994. The
Janatha Mithuro worked harder than the SLFP leaders what turned out to be a
game-changing provincial council election, that of the Southern Province. They had built a considerable network which
was deployed to campaign against the UNP in the August 1993 General
Election. This is what Champika said:
“We must accept the fact that with this result we will
become weaker. The defeat of the UNP will
sort out a lot of frustrations. It will
produce so much relief that people will feel they can go about with their
lives.”
That’s exactly what happened. The fortunes of the Janatha Mithuro declined
thereafter. They may have not had
Wijetunga contested, won and if we had another UNP Government run essentially
by those who subscribed to Premadasa’s thinking and ways, both arguably made
for stifling democracy. What kind of
social ruptured may have resulted we cannot tell, but it is probably the same
that a third Rajapaksa term would have precipitated.
Wijetunga’s decisions, whether inspired by fear or
democratizing intent that held country above party and self, notwithstanding
all the crimes of the Kumaratunga regime including lawlessness, executive
interference in the judiciary and a general decline in democratic practices,
had an overall positive outcome.
Positive, that is, compared to what was and what could have been had he
gone along with Sirisena’s proposal.
Even if systems of exploitation and oppression don’t change in that their
latency remains, people need some kind of relief. This is what Senior Lecturer in Political
Science at the Sri Jayawardenapura University, Anuruddha Pradeep Karnasuriya,
told me a few days ago.
That’s what the result of the January 2015 Presidential
Election also produced. Relief. Sure there would have been many who thought
we’ll see a radical overhaul of the institutional arrangement so that democracy
can be restored and strengthened. Many
called it a ‘revolution’. Nepotism would
be buried forever, some believed. There
would be no more ‘deals’ whereby public money would be pocketed by unscrupulous
politicians and their lackeys, some were convinced. Promises would be taken seriously this time
around, people said. One year into the
Sirisena term, the euphoria has given way to sobriety.
However, it must be said that the passage of the 19th
Amendment or rather those sections pertaining to independent institutions (and
not the clipping of a few executive powers in the office of the President) is a
significant gain. The benefits are not
immediately tangible, but in time when the people are more aware of the
functions of these institutions and politicians more conscious of the
repercussions of doing things as they were done before, their importance will
no doubt be duly recognized. For now,
however, what probably most disappoints those who thought a revolution had
taken place is the behavior of the President.
Maithripala Sirisena, by declaration, was to be a
task-focused President. He would restore
democracy, abolish the executive presidency, re-establish Rule of Law, and
retire at the end of the term as a hero, a statesman who put country before
self. The signs indicate that such an
eventuality is a pipe-dream. Herein lies
the danger.
Whereas the Wijetunga decision (or non-decision) gave
relief, the past 12 months indicate that the Sirisena dispensation is
determined to make sure such relief is short-lived. Whereas leaders tend to get intoxicated with
power in their second term, in this instance we see it happening before the
second year has begun. The ‘Official
Presidential Song’ released on the anniversary of Sirisena’s election victory
(and removed before 24 hours had passed) was in all likelihood commissioned by
the president. He is after all featured
in the video striding from the ruins of Polonnaruwa which form the backdrop for
the entire theme: he is likened to Parakramabahu the Great and Vijayabahu the
First. The attempt is to inscribe royalty
on the man. Ironically, the lyrics warn
him against hosanna-singers even as the song is an unadulterated hosanna
utterly lacking in taste and, worse, antithetical to everything that was
promised by Sirisena during his campaign.
The song can be dismissed as a common error by sycophants,
but only if what’s happened in the past 12 months did not in fact reflect all
that is wrong with that production.
We do not know who is advising the President or whether he
acts on his own, but it seems that he is utterly confused about his role. On the one hand he is change-agent. On the other he seems fixated with
Rajapaksa-bashing and securing absolute control of the SLFP. It could be called spreading himself too thin
if it wasn’t better to describe it all as falling between stools. The tragedy is that whoever is turning him
into a laughing stock is severely compromising the critical role he should and
indeed only he can play in seeing the reform agenda through.
People say that Wijetunga was an ineffective President, a
lucky man who did nothing. This, looking
back, is a bit harsh. He did not arrive
in climate where there was a reform agenda of any serious kind. He could help ease a transition. He could facilitate relief. He did.
President Sirisena has a broader agenda and operates in a climate which
is quite conducive to democratizing structural reform. As of now he’s trying to be Mahinda Rajapaksa
the Second in terms of grand self-promotion and, sadly, the indulgence in all
the wrong his predecessor was guilty of.
Now, if he did a Wijetunga and nothing else, the history books would be
kind to him. He’s fast disqualifying
himself for that kind of page.
[This was first published in the SUNDAY ISLAND on January 10, 2016]
Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at malindasenevi@gmail.com
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