EDITORIAL

To Win Or Lose It All

It was only a month ago that we opined, rather prophetically as it turned out, that the proposed 19th Amendment to the constitution is not God’s gift to democracy. “One sympathises with the prime minister’s predicament,” we wrote. “After all, he is stuck between the slenderest of majorities and an intransigent, unpredictable and recalcitrant President. Nevertheless, such a requirement is a subversion of democracy of the gravest kind and one cannot help thinking that this is an issue on which the Supreme Court would do well to insist on a referendum.”

That is precisely what the Supreme Court has done, in effect playing the wild card that has precipitated a constitutional crisis of impressive proportions. The judgement came as a shot in the arm to the PA and JVP, and especially given the recent problems in the east, the scales are less favourably tilted in the UNF’s favour than they were when the amendment was formally proposed a month ago yesterday.

Having cast the gauntlet, Ranil Wickremesinghe is now faced with Hobson’s choice. He can follow the court’s recommendation and go for a parliamentary vote, attempt to win it by a two thirds majority and then seek to win a referendum. As a political manoeuvre, nothing could be clumsier than that, especially in view of the pressing need to persuade 19 PA MPs on the Supreme Court terms to vote against party dictates, in the backdrop of the Conscience Vote being declared unconstitutional if restricted only to the amendment in question.

On the other hand, he can take the bull by the horns and opt for a December general election, in order to seek a vote of confidence from the electorate for the tack he has taken over the past year. Either way, it is the President’s call, though Wickremesinghe holds the moral and political high ground. At the same time, he can call the PA and the JVP’s bluff and move for the immediate abolition of the executive presidency, once again achieving the same objective of the 19th Amendment. The Prime Minister also has the option of amending the Conscience Vote provision to make it a blanket provision and then going for the two third majority and referendum.

There is no politician on either side of the House, barring the JVP, who wants an election at this point. The people are tired of elections, and politicians, whatever their complexion, are broke. What is more, it is not as if there is a burning crisis in the country. The UNF’s platform will be that it cannot cohabit with the President, given her obvious undermining of the peace process in particular and governance in general. They will also underline the return of the country to normalcy. As for the PA and JVP, the campaign will focus entirely on the dangers of the peace process (de facto Eelam) and the lack of progress on the economic development front.

Despite having been nine months in office, the UNF government has precious little to show in terms of national development, having failed to get a single large project off the ground. True, the UNF inherited an economic wasteland but the people have short memories and will only remember the economic delivery under the new dispensation lest they be reminded through an effective propaganda campaign the record under Kumaratunga. The aid donors have been talking of increasing levels of development assistance, but precious little has come. We have all the glasnost and perestroika we can swallow, but there are still serious doubts about the government’s will to abate corruption. So much so, it failed to even clean up the permanent commission investigating allegations of bribery and corruption despite startling evidence of impropriety at the commission. The biggest plus factor for the government on the other hand of course is the prospect of peace in the country and the people largely breathing the air of freedom after years of war. But even that is now thrown into jeopardy in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement with the LTTE unlikely to play ball in a climate of uncertainty where Kumaratunga can pull the rug under the entire process at her whim.

All this makes for an interesting election. The PA’s abysmal record of inefficiency and corruption is no longer an issue. Neither is their seven-year record in office. The ball is in the UNF’s court, and the UNF itself is polarised between the hawks and the doves, not assisted by the fact that the President has succeeded in driving a formidable wedge between the pro- and anti-cohabitation camps in the UNF.

Wickremesinghe now has no choice but to put his popularity to the vote or go for the abolition of the executive presidency. In his view, the national desire for peace outweighs suspicions the PA and JVP seek to sow that the Tigers are already on the way to Eelam by another name. That assertion must be tested. If the people endorse Wickremesinghe’s peace initiative, then he is home and dry, on the moral high ground, with popular authority to impeach the President. Now that cohabitation has failed, he has no choice but to ‘go for the kill,’ so as to have a full six-year term during which he can focus unimpeded on development.

Will the President let him? Clearly no. Even if Wickremesinghe asks for dissolution of parliament, or if parliament itself passes such a resolution, it is the President’s prerogative to decide. She is most unlikely to cut her own throat. Her argument will be simple: the government has a majority in the House; if they can’t govern, hand over to someone else who can; there is no need for a fresh election at this point. She will refer to the enormous expense (Rs. 600 million), even though that is just half the price of an Airbus. She will fail to note that even were a referendum (rather than a general election) to be held, the cost to the state would be much the same. On the other hand, if the President truly believes, as she has publicly expressed, that the Prime Minister’s peace initiative will lead to a de facto state of Eelam, not to mention the harassment meted out to her PSD and PA members, then she will be hard pressed to refuse an opportunity to give the people an opportunity of expressing their view on these crucial issues through a ballot. Indeed, the president will be duty bound to do so and give the people an opportunity of kicking the UNF out of office if it is paving the way, as she claims, for a de facto Eelam. The response of the government if the President is intransigent will also be to play hardball and cut off funds for the President. All this will lead to a constitutional crisis of mammoth proportions, which Kumaratunga of course can avoid by asking the people for their verdict.

The past nine months have demonstrated beyond a doubt that cohabitation simply will not work. Given that the President is in office until end 2005, there is precious little chance that she will have a change of heart now. She has complained continuously that cohabitation with the UNF is impossible because of the critical comments made about her by a handful of UNF ministers. Well, only last week one of her most vociferous critics in the cabinet, Rajitha Senaratne called her bluff by offering her an olive branch and said he would put aside their differences. She spurned him clearly indicating it is she who is not prepared to cohabit.

With the President careful to mind her ‘p’s and ‘q’s for one week, Lakshman Kadirgamar went about crowing that his wise counsel had prevailed. Then, last week, Kumaratunga flew off the handle again, abusing all and sundry, including the Prime Minister. The challenge before Kumaratunga during the balance of her term is not just cohabiting with the UNF, who have deprived her only of her dignity: it is cohabiting with Prabhakaran, who deprived her of an eye, and very nearly her life. Considering her behaviour when the UNP was on a high, it is inconceivable she will now let up with the Supreme Court through its order having weakened the peace process and strengthened the President’s hand considerably with the referendum order while knocking out the ‘Conscience Vote’ provision.

Wickremesinghe put his fortune including the stability of the peace process and the government to the test and earned the Supreme Court’s rebuke. Now he must put it to the people and see whether he can win once more, and with an increased majority or move for the immediate abolition of the executive presidency and face Kumaratunga across the aisle in parliament. Only that will give him the moral authority to seek peace instead of war; development instead of stagnation; and impeachment instead of cohabitation. Well might he recall the words of Montrose, “He either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are too small, that puts it not unto the touch, to win or lose it all.”