That Mandate

There is a pithy proverb in Sinhalese that goes something like — nangiwa pennala akkawa dunna. In essence, what is meant is that having promised the beautiful younger sister in marriage, the not so good-looking older sister is presented at the wedding ceremony instead to the unsuspecting groom.

This basically sums up what is happening in Sri Lanka today. President Mahinda Rajapaksa called two elections at the beginning of this year. Both elections were called prematurely to obtain the maximum electoral dividend from the war victory. At these elections and at every election before it since 1994, the main issue that parties canvassed on, was the abolition of the executive presidency, which the party in governance today described rather vocally as the fount of all evil in this paradise lost.

Having canvassed not once, but twice – for the first time in 2005 and then in January this year seeking a second presidential term, President Mahinda Rajapaksa in no uncertain terms said the executive presidency must go and to do that, funnily enough, to appoint him for a second term. He asked for this specific mandate and he got it – no less than 62% of the vote. Now this very same president, even before he could take oath for his second term — tentatively scheduled for November this year, has made it known that he wishes to amend the constitution to enable a president, serving or retired, to seek a third term.

Rajapaksa’s piece of reform which it seems is being fast tracked with cabinet sanction already secured, though the Attorney-General is yet to see it, does not stop with a third term – it is for perpetuity – which means Rajapaksa can even serve a fourth, fifth or God forbid sixth term. Rajapaksa’s explanation – that if people want him he must be able to continue.

Why is it that it has not struck him, his eager-to-please cabinet, or any one of those, now busy drafting the constitutional amendments, that the two-term limit has been placed for a specific reason?

Who can forget J.R. Jayewardene’s description of the powers the post of executive presidency held – that the only power the post lacked was the power to transform a man into a woman and vice versa. It is to JR’s credit that he was no Mahinda Rajapaksa, for otherwise as the architect of the ’78 Constitution and as the first serving president with a 5/6th majority to boot, he could well have done what Mahinda Rajapaksa is now trying to do and ruled happily till either the cows or the JVP came home.

There is a reason the ‘Old Fox’ and the legal luminaries who drafted the ‘78 Constitution placed that term limit on the executive presidency. It is because however ‘good’ a man maybe, ‘good’ being a rather relative term, it is a historically proven fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Sri Lanka’s executive presidency contains absolute power, as its creator JR described in eloquent terms. We are not for a moment implying that Rajapaksa is or could be corrupt. But then, who are we to argue with history? In this land where the collective national memory lasts no longer than two weeks, a great many things can happen in 12 years. This is ample time for any politician worth his salt to complete any project which he begins, so why on earth would one want to rule for 18 years or 24?

What we are witnessing now is a classic case of nangiwa pennala akkawa denawa where Mahinda Rajapaksa having secured his mandate for a second term by promising to abolish the post, is now seeking to serve a third term through constitutional jiggery-pokery using that very same mandate. Pre-election, he was to tell the masses that he would return to parliament as executive prime minister. But then, Sri Lankans have a knack of being made suckers and no one knows it better than Mahinda Rajapaksa. So, whether the people like it or not, the President is bound to have his way, especially in the absence of any potent opposition. Opposition apart (no pun intended) the President’s actions will inevitably lead to serious questions about the mandate he received, which is now being used to tailor the constitution to his requirements none of which were sanctioned by the electorate.

The question needs to be asked whether he would have got the kind of mandate he did, were he to tell the people that he wanted to be president forever. And also the fact that he intends to do away with the Constitutional Council nuisance as well. If the electorate knew beforehand what the President is now trying to do, there is no way he would have got the mandate that he did, war victory or not. Wimal Weerawansa would be the first to admit that, but his silence on the proposed changes are indeed deafening.

The bottom line is this, Mahinda Rajapaksa who campaigned not once but twice on the promise that he would abolish the executive presidency — and should anyone have amnesia, there is written proof in the Mahinda Chinthanaya — now wants to use the keleguna ‘mandate’ he received, to enact legislation to perpetuate the very same executive presidency. And if that weren’t enough, a similar promise was made to establish the independent commissions without delay. Now the president is again using ‘the mandate’ he received to re-establish the independent commissions, to enact legislation to transform these commissions into dependent commissions – dependent on the president, for he will be the new sole appointing/dismissing authority.

This is how the unprecedented mandate the President received is being twisted and turned to suit the requirements of the regime. It seems that the 62 percent of the electorate that voted for Mahinda Rajapaksa, expecting him to keep his word, are being taken for the ride of their lives as Sri Lankans have been since 1994. What can we scribes, who found much humour in the president’s Mahinda Chinthana ‘abolition’ promise, now say but ‘we knew it all along.’ Sri Lankans have no choice but to forget the attractive nangi that was promised and marry the virago; the loku akka. Tough luck.