The media images last week of opposition UNP leaders being greeted by
President Mahinda Rajapaksa and senior ministers of his government
should send a reassuring message to the country and world at large.
The message is that the politics of confrontation and acrimony may be
coming to an end, and the time for a more liberal spirit of nation
building after war is coming to the fore. This was in contrast to the
sense of crisis and acrimony that pervaded the media space the
previous week when another leader of the government, Minister Wimal
Weerawansa, staged a highly publicized fast unto death to protest
against the UN Secretary General's appointment of an advisory panel on
Sri Lanka's human rights situation.
The government-UNP talks are reported to revolve around three major
issues. The first and most intriguing is the replacement of the
Executive Presidential system with one that brings in an Executive
Prime Ministerial office. The second issue is the implementation of
the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which President Rajapaksa
right from the beginning and his predecessor in office President
Chandrika Kumaratunga in her second term of office both refused to do.
The 17th Amendment takes away the power of the President to make
unilateral appointments to high offices of state. The third issue is
that of reforming the present proportional electoral system to one
based on a mixed first past the post and proportional system.
Shortly after the government won a near two-thirds majority in
Parliament in April of this year, various government spokespersons
began to talk about the unfairness and undesirability of President
Rajapaksa being limited to only two terms of the Presidency. This is
on account of the current constitutional limitation on any elected
President having a maximum of two six year terms. In the United
States, the maximum limit on any President is two four year terms,
which gives the Sri Lankan presidency a third term if the comparison
is with the United States. But even this long period of twelve years
is not satisfying to those who believe that President Rajapaksa merits
a still longer period of power when he is at the zenith of his
popularity
The problem for those who propose the removal of the two term
limitation on the Presidency is that there has been neither visible
public support nor opposition to it. There appears to be just apathy
on the surface. This could be due to the propaganda carried out by
the opposition that the country is heading towards a dictatorship. In
addition, the opposition has also been making the more objective
criticism that neither President Rajapaksa nor the ruling party made
any mention of a plan to do away with the two term limit on the
Presidency either during the Presidential election in January or the
General election in April this year. Instead the government simply
sprang the proposed revision of the constitution on the people after
securing their electoral victories.
UNP PROPOSAL
The UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe's proposal of a compromise in the
form of an Executive Prime Ministerial system to replace the Executive
Presidential system would be a face saving way for the government to
back out of its own proposal to remove the two term limit on the
Presidency. There is usually no limit placed on the number of times a
person can be elected as Prime Minister. It also appears that what
the UNP leader seeks is an Executive Prime Minister who would have
extraordinary powers not usually wielded by a Prime Minister in the
Westminster system that Sri Lankans are accustomed to and which Sri
Lanka had in the past. In effect, therefore, there would be not much
difference between the Presidential and Prime Ministerial powers.
What would distinguish the Executive Presidency from the Executive
Prime Minister is that the latter would attend Parliament and be
answerable to Parliament. Unlike the Executive President, it is also
like that the Executive Prime Minister will be made accountable to the
judiciary and therefore not enjoy the legal immunity that enables the
President to be a law unto himself or herself. On the other hand,
there would also be significant similarities between the two posts
that could make the change in terminologies less meaningful.
The major similarity between the two posts is that both are elected by
direct election, in which the electorate that votes is the whole
country. This is unlike in the case of the Westminster system of
Prime Ministerial rule, where the Prime Minister is elected like any
other MP from a constituency into which the country is sub-divided.
This indicates that the Executive Prime Minister will enjoy a certain
level of autonomy from both the Parliament and his own party, once
elected. This contrasts with the Westminster system where the Prime
Minister is liable to be removed either by a vote of no-confidence by
the entire Parliament, or even by a revolt within the ruling party, as
occurred recently in Australia.
The greater powers enjoyed by the Executive Prime Minister and the
relative autonomy from Parliament would appeal to those who have a
more autocratic style of leadership rather than a consultative style.
When President J R Jayewardene conceived of the Executive Presidential
system, he said that it enabled him to be "free from the whims and
fancies of Parliament." However, the experience of Sri Lanka since
then has been that, from the country's point of view, it is more
disadvantageous to be at the mercy of the whims and fancies of one
individual than of a group of unlike minded persons, which is what
Parliament is. On the other hand, making a break with the past and
taking the country in a new direction sometimes requires unpopular
decisions and thinking of the long term rather than the short term,
which requires strong leadership powers.
NOT FINAL
The common interest that both President Rajapaksa and opposition
leader Wickremesinghe have with regard to the style of leadership
inherent in the Executive Prime Ministerial model may explain the
warmth of their new relationship. It is believed that the inspiration
for their new model comes from Israel. The shifting coalitions and a
fractured party system in that country led the Knesset (Parliament) to
adopt legislation in the mid-1990s that put in place the direct
election of the Prime Minister. However, although this move was
intended to enhance the Prime Minister's position against
parliamentary coalitions, it failed, and the new legislation in fact
only further fragmented the party system. It was consequently soon
rescinded. Those who frame the new Sri Lankan system will need to
keep this Israeli experience in mind.
So far it appears that the dialogue between the government and UNP has
not encompassed those issues of constitutional reform that relate to
the ethnic conflict. It may be that the government and UNP
leaderships want to first deal with those issues on which they can
reach agreement and will not be too controversial with the people.
While most people have shown themselves to be apathetic in relation to
questions of governance in general, their potential to get mobilized
for action is much higher in the case of the ethnic conflict. It is a
matter of historical record that even governments have fallen when
they attempted to deal politically with the issue in the past. The
most recent example was the government headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe
in 2004.
As a politician with a reputation for being more sensitive to the
sentiments of the ethnic minorities than most others, UNP leader
Wickremesinghe will be expected to bring up the issue of the ethnic
conflict into the reform process before too long. While the two
leaders can agree on the direction of change that is necessary, it
would not be appropriate for them to work out the substance of a
political solution in any detail. Working out a solution to the
ethnic conflict would require the presence of the ethnic minority
party representatives, as it is their marginalization from the
decision making processes in the past that led to the aggravation of
ethnic conflict in the first place.
Although President Rajapaksa has not given priority to a political
solution and given preference to military and economic solutions to
the ethnic conflict, it is now becoming more important for him to
change track. This is on account of the international pressure that
is bearing down upon his government in ever greater measure. The UN
Secretary General has not backed down on his human rights advisory
panel despite the protests from the Sri Lankan government. He has now
appointed an eight member secretariat to support the panel of advisors
in their work. A political solution to the ethnic conflict that has
the consent of the UNP and ethnic minority parties might be the best
answer that the government can give to its international critics.