For A ‘Populist’ Constitution, How ‘People Friendly’ Is Wickremesinghe?

The death fast that turned into a big farce had to be called off saving face, not only for Weerawansa, but for Rajapaksa too. Defence Secretary ‘bro’ who was touted in the media as one who inspired Weerawansa, has in hindsight proved to be a political blunder. There was no option but for the President himself to visit Weerawansa on his mattress opposite the UN Colombo office and pack him off. The whole crude drama thus ended. But before that, Rajapaksa had arranged to meet Opposition Leader Wickremesinghe for a one on one meeting.

Rajapaksa is one politician who could feel the wind and which way its blowing. He, for sure was feeling the wind changing direction, while all around him were feeling comfy with state power and perks at their feet. He does understand that it does not take much time for the tide to swell politically and when there is principled opposition, that cannot be wooed with smiles and pleasantries. The ‘Left’ in his UPFA, albeit a tiny speck in the social fabric, had taken such a stand (against his family regime  wanting to adjust the presidential term to suit themselves) against constitutional amendments.

He would not allow a Maldivian type flu to blow across his stables and at a time his local politics were impacting negatively on his seemingly strong international image. That he knew could shoot holes in his power game, if he did not get into damage control mode… fast.  His political power was not one that he would allow to be challenged openly.

Wickremesinghe, was also on similar sticky ground, his image going rotten each day with more and open dissent within the party. He, a man who always lives with manipulation than politics, was also looking for an escape route to get media space, his only means for public attention. The two therefore met, before Rajapaksa took off with a glass of water for Weerawansa, taking most by surprise. Together they were going to repair their images and expecting stability in their own camps.

For now this seems the direction the discussions and proposals between President Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Wickremesinghe would lead. The duo says the dialogue would continue on constitutional reforms (one that Wickremesinghe, originally wanted to do away with the restrictions on the two term presidency) the basis of an executive premiership, apart from other suggested amendments to the constitution.

How and why Wickremesinghe decided to accept the offer to discuss the constitution and its proposed reforms with President Rajapaksa all by himself and not with his party or opposition delegation, is dicey to say the least. What is Wickremesinghe thinking or expecting he could gain from these discussions with Rajapaksa, for the people for starters? For the opposition? For his party the UNP, or for him? What does Wickremesinghe mean by his new phrase ‘people friendly’ constitution, for that matter ? Wasn’t this constitution that he and the UNP defended and lived with, ‘people friendly’ ?

Though Wickremesinghe finds it apt to say it is a SLFP-UNP dialogue, politics of this regime does not allow any sane person or party to indulge in compromises and enter into agreements with it. This regime is no more a ‘political party’ based government. It is a pseudo representative government, with people turned into inactive numbers in the voter registry. Perhaps these numbed people voted en bloc to once again hoist the Rajapaksa led UPFA to power at the recent elections, kept under a huge avalanche of state sponsored political prop and push, given an ineffective opposition headed by Wickremesinghe.

Yet in reality and in politics, there is no ‘people based’ political organisation as the UPFA, though accepted by the Election Commissioner’s Department as a registered political party. The UPFA cannot and does not exist without  the SLFP.

Rajapaksa’s rise to presidency came through the SLFP and not through this blank, neo legal UPFA. The SLFP still carries the bulk of the voter base for the UPFA and is the only nationally representative party, within the UPFA. Therefore, majority of this government’s elected representatives to parliament are SLFP in origin. But what is the SLFP now in governance?

The SLFP has been systematically dismantled at every level to a mere sign board, to be lifted only when it is politically advantageous to the regime and the Rajapaksas. The party in its structured organisational existence, is no more. Nominations for elections are not decided by the SLFP leadership, but by a committee the Rajapaksas are happy with. Of course that ‘committee’ is given a label to fit the political currency of the time. The leadership of the party is decided as consented by the aura of political power vested with the presidency and not on a democratic slate, as it should be. General Secretary of the SLFP Sirisena, cannot play a political role for the SLFP, independent of what the Rajapaksa regime decides and wishes. That in fact is true with the UPFA General Secretary, Premajayantha too.

The political right to make decisions in a government as a collective body and the political party process in governance is now wholly dissolved within a family regime that has taken over the power to decide , although in theory and on principle, the voter has to first pick a political party, when casting the vote. Political decision making that decided the governing policy in the past, had been what was agreed upon within the political party, whether it was D.S., Dudley, S.W.R.D., or even Sirima.

That party process, democratic to a certain degree in parliamentary form of governments, was restricted with undue powers being vested with the Executive Presidency after the 1978 Constitution. It is now accepted that executive authority was not felt as such during the J.R.J era. It was nevertheless irritably felt during the Premadasa era and resulted in the now (in)famous ‘Impeachment’ against President Premadasa. The ‘Impeachment’ also led to a split in the ‘Premadasa’ UNP.

Such authoritative rule over not only governance, but also over the political party is only possible with this constitution that makes the ‘president’ elect the leader of the party and thereby the ‘leader’ of the party, the presidential nominee. This constitution in that sense, has made the executive power, supersede political party life and its ability to function independent of the executive. That is the only reason, the whole SLFP Central Committee, though not a very constitutionally and legally elected body for many decades now, had to compromise with President Rajapaksa to hand over the party leadership to him. That was precisely why Chandrika B. Kumaratunga had to give in to President Rajapaksa’s pressure and reluctantly leave the party leadership, which she thought she could hold on to.

It is not just the power vested in the 1978 Constitution to govern the country as the Executive Head of the State that provides this ability to hijack a whole government and hold it as a family regime, but also the entrenched power of taking the political party into one’s own personal custody that allows for this type of ‘Kleptocracy’. It is this political rule within a party that Wickremesinghe has always been looking for. Catapulted into the UNP leadership by accident, after the LTTE eliminated the two leaders groomed by J.R.J and the party’s home grown leader in Premadasa, Wickremesinghe had to depend on the party constitution for all his scheming and manipulations, to keep the party leadership with him.

This UNP, after 15 plus years of his leadership is without continuous ‘voter trust’ and without a second tier leadership that Wickremesinghe did not wish and also feared, would emerge. Unable thus to have a proactive leadership, it has forfeited its future to Rajapaksa, who has usurped supreme reign under his regime and is ready to fashion it, his way. He is not seen as easily stoppable by the now crestfallen opposition, with a constitution that more than provides power to him, and reduces others to be subservient .

What else can Wickremesinghe do, as one who never trusted and laid faith with the people ? Wickremesinghe is one who is awfully afraid of people’s mobilisation, although he uses the term ‘people’ in his rhetoric. If he did have his faith in people mobilisation, he would not have dispersed the mammoth people’s power that came on the roads, when President Kumaratunga took over three of his government’s ministries in 2003 December. If he then had more faith in people than on Malik-Mano pow wows, this country would have a completely different history, better or  worse.
Where then would Wickremesinghe differ from or contradict Rajapaksa’s rule? Right now there is no front that Wickremesinghe could say, he is different to Rajapaksa. The UNP complaint that this 2010 half year budget is an ‘IMF crafted’ budget, has little or no meaning, as it is Wickremesinghe’s government in 2002 that ushered in the ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’ programme, based on a redundant policy of the World Bank that the WB itself had by 1989 accepted as ineffective and socially explosive.

Since then, the UNP under Wickremesinghe has not come up with any other programme for socio economic development. All they could also do, if in power, would be to gel with the IMF and the World Bank to restructure public spending within a completely free economy. They could ‘claim’ to rid the system of corruption, but it was also under Wickremesinghe’s premiership that Moragodas and Karu Jayasuriyas were accused of corruption and Samarasinghe was petitioned to the Bribery Commission for swindling insurance commission money, while overseeing foreign employment. There were other names too that did rounds and Wickremesinghe’s government though short in time was not that short in corruption.

The UNP under Wickremesinghe has also completely compromised on the Tamil political issue, to the extent that it now wants to take credit for not making Sri Lanka a signatory to the Rome Statutes. Wickremesinghe’s leadership wants credit for keeping Sri Lanka out of war crimes investigations and has over the past years kept out of advocating human rights in this country. They therefore have no clear position on post war reconciliation and the 13th Amendment fearing they would not have Sinhala votes at future elections.

With no principle and political positions that could pose Wickremesinghe as an alternate leader to the Rajapaksa, he and  his UNP therefore remains politically, a smaller patch of the same Rajapaksa regime. What he is therefore shuttling to do now is to see if he could take credit for any constitutional reforms that could be marketed as positive, not knowing that if such is possible, it would be Rajapaksa who would take the credit and not him.

He is definitely one who is politically mediocre too. His slogan of a people friendly (populist) constitution is politically absurd. Constitutions cannot be people friendly. They can only be ‘democratic and secular’ and that should be the focus. But, that cannot be the case with leaders who have grown out of political parties that have no democratic traditions and are politically undemocratic. Wickremesinghe, is far more rigid in that, than even Rajapaksa. So, here we go now as a society that would have to live decades longer than the cockroach that is said, would survive for almost 10 days without a head.