Battle of Budget: Flashpoint Friday

• CWC and SLMC swinging both ways
• Is CBK directing strategy from Africa through Mangala and Anura?
• Ranil comes up with new proposals to keep president but clip wings

By Our Political Editor

Four days from now the answer to the all-important question on almost everyone's lip -- whether the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government would survive the third reading of the Budget vote or the Opposition's hope of turning tables turns to ash -- will unravel. That is when MPs cast their final vote on Friday.

The near conclusion of a lengthy Committee stage of the budget where the different Ministries were debated but ever so briefly, sets a new political backdrop. It is different from voting during the second reading on November 19. Some Government MPs were reportedly reticent to vote with the Opposition. They were then not sure which way the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) would respond. The JVP had kept its united vote a closely-guarded secret till its first MP had to vote. His was the 105th MP to vote. Now, the JVP's vote is no longer in doubt. Its leaders have made it unequivocally clear that it would be a vote against the budget. There will be no "aye, aye" Sir and no abstentions.

Yet, there is a great deal of scepticism and even schizophrenia. Those who want to see the budget defeated, strange but true, are still not sure what to do. This is notwithstanding the recent role of the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), a constituent partner of the Government. Its marriage with the Rajapaksa administration has seen many separations and returns. It's an uneasy relationship at best, a marriage of convenience for both, united by the common bond of power and perks.

This week, the CWC struck a seemingly discordant note. Its leader Arumugam Thondaman, known for his fire and brimstone loquaciousness followed by self-defeating surrender, was at it again. His grandfather the grand old man of yesteryear, Saumyamoorthy Thondaman, would always say that timing was of the essence. He would always compare to political timing to the making of dosai, the staple food of the plantation worker. Take it off the fire too early and it is raw, take it off too late and it is burnt.

Trying his darnest to emulate the grand old man, Thondaman the younger went to the Supreme Court with a fundamental rights violation application this week. He complained that many of those Tamils arrested by the Armed Forces and the Police were local residents and well known personalities. Officers in charge of Police Stations knew them but they were refusing to release them saying they had no authority to do so. He decried that the arrests were carried out in an irresponsible manner; causing great inconvenience and humiliation.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva on Friday granted leave to proceed with this case. Thus, the case will now go into full inquiry. The case of military checkpoints that have sprung up all over the highways and by-roads with permanent structures jutting into the road also came up before the Supreme Court only days earlier. The Court held they were illegal and put members of the public at great inconvenience. They are being dismantled one after another following the ruling.

State-run television stations tried to meet the Supreme Court ruling by showing footage of road barriers and security check-points in neighbouring India, Pakistan and Bangladesh depicting that these are normal procedures in all these countries facing terrorist threats. But, what they did not say was that in neighbouring India, the Supreme Court has been playing a similar activist role. So much so, public transport today in the City of New Delhi is run entirely on compressed natural gas (CNG). Soon, cars will follow suit. This followed an SC ruling to protect the environment. And the High Court in that country has said that if VIPs are frightened to get out of their homes without so much security they must stay at home.

In going to Sri Lanka's Supreme Court, the question in political circles was not so much the issues before court, but the CWC leader's timing. Why right now on the eve of the Budget vote? Clearly, the CWC was sending a message to the Government. Thondaman himself and a few of his parliamentary colleagues were absent when the Ministry of Defence votes were taken up in Parliament on Thursday. Others led by S. Sellasamy were present and voted with the Government. Apparently, Sellasamy had spoken and thought that the Defence Ministry votes would be taken up at 6 pm., but instead, they were taken up an hour earlier at 5 pm. Being present in the House, and not knowing that the CWC was keeping away from the vote, Sellasamy had voted for the Defence Ministry votes, as it happened, while his leader was preparing the legal documents to go before the Supreme Court complaining against the Defence Ministry for what he claimed was the unlawful detention of several of his members and supporters. Reports said Thondaman admonished Sellasamay, a party veteran and one-time deputy to the grand old man, for doing what he did.

But the bigger question in some political circles is whether Thondaman, described by one wag as a "lover of perks and Mercs", going to the Supreme Court was a transparent ploy. "This is to show his electorate that he is agitated over the arrest of Tamils including plantation workers. Only the other day, his party had voted with the government to pass the budget of the Central Provincial Council, and was himself admonished by United National Party (UNP) Kandy MP Lakshman Kiriella for not speaking up for 'his people', the plantation workers. So, when it comes to voting on the budget in Parliament, he will most certainly throw his weight with the Government. In the alternative, which is highly unlikely, he and his colleagues would abstain," says a prime mover in Parliament who wants to see the Government defeated at Friday's voting.

Thondaman's action, others felt, would surely distance him from the Government. They argued that by going before the Supreme Court in itself embarrassed the Government and its leaders.

But the Government will not be too concerned about what people say and do, as long as they eventually vote for the budget and keep the Government afloat for the next year as well. Even a section of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) was trying to cash in on the prevailing situation. They were demanding, of all things, that the Government reverse a Supreme Court order on noise pollution - the restricted use of loud-speakers. The Government ever willing to bend backwards to get their vote, is reportedly willing to do so.

On a different front, Heritage Minister Anura Bandaranaike has also jumped into the fray. Last week he wrote a scathing letter to Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona insulting the Government for the manner in which it was running its foreign policy. The criticism was not only aimed at the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Ministry mandarins, but also on no less a person than President Mahinda Rajapaksa. This week Bandaranaike resigned from the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to add injury to insult for the Government of which he is a non-consequential Cabinet Minister.

Then, to our sister newspaper, Irida Lankadeepa Bandaranaike has said that he has yet to make up his mind as to whether to vote with the Government next Friday, or not to vote with the Government.

He who voted with the Government for the second reading last month, saying very loudly while voting that he was voting that way because of his late mother and father, and not because of "anyone else", Bandaranaike has told the Irida Lankadeepa that this time he would consider the manner in which the Rajapaksa government conducted its foreign policy and whether there was a need to defend such a government before he casts his vote.

The Bandaranaike noises seem to indicate that he is clearly keeping his options open. With a week to go breakaway Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MP Mangala Samaraweera is working at break-neck pace to win over what is known as the Chandrika Kumaratunga elements in the SLFP to the Opposition ranks. Kumaratunga herself is currently touring Africa and though she was due to arrive in Sri Lanka this week, has put her return to after the budget vote. But who is to say that she is not making calls from wherever she is to her faithful, many of whom have nevertheless ditched her since she left the Presidency two years ago.

Kumaratunga, with no fixed abode in Sri Lanka, is adamant to oust Rajapaksa, and her brother the Heritage Minister is probably her weather-vane, while Samaraweera does the spade-work in toppling the Government.

The Rajapaksa administration is not sitting and staring either while the Opposition tries to muscle in on them. Like, the coup they engineered in having UNP MP Mahinda Ratnatilleke cross over and offer him a portfolio, there are reports that they have promised likely cross-overs with similar office. One of them has been reportedly offered the job of Chairman of Sri Lanka Cricket, the governing body for cricket in this country.

Pressure on Opposition benches were mounting too. On Thursday, the Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Nimal Kulatunga informed Speaker, W.J.M. Lokubandara on the need to record a statement from Ravi Karunanayake, UNP MP. This is over a reported complaint of money laundering made by the Central Bank to the CID. It deals with the remittance of three million US dollars into a bank account. Karunanayake has defended himself by saying that he was the promoter of the sale of shares of Union Bank. Raj Rajaratnam, a fund-manager based in the United States had remitted three million US dollars to an Auditor's account to purchase shares. "The money did not come into my personal account," he says.

These developments were taking place at a time when there is a considerable deterioration in the security situation. The latest move by Security Forces to advance from their defended localities west of Vavuniya met with stiff resistance from Tiger guerrillas. There is a variance in the official casualty counts and those given by military sources. In a bid to ease the pressure on them, the guerrillas have resorted to the dastardly act of attacking civilian targets. On Wednesday they exploded claymore mines on a bus carrying civilian passengers leaving 16 persons dead and more than 23 injured.

Meanwhile, UNP and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has put forward proposals relating to Constitutional amendments, which he says are open for public discussion and debate. These revolve mainly around the powers of the Executive President now that the debate on whether to bring back the parliamentary system with a Prime Minister as Head of Government and a ceremonial President as we had in the pre-1978 period has gone into the limbo of forgotten things.

Wickremesinghe's UNP that introduced this Executive Presidency giving the President enormous powers, is still clinging on to the system, saying it's not the system that is at fault, but the people who adorn that seat. Those who have vehemently criticised the system, once seated tend to conveniently forget their own criticism and enjoy its fruits.

The new proposals seem to bring in further provisions from the two main countries that have this system of government, i.e. France and the United States of America. What Wickremesinghe proposes is:

"After 2005, laws and Parliamentary conventions already in existence have been ignored. There is open disregard of the Constitution by the President and the Government. Parliament has been by-passed. As a result there is no Parliamentary control over the Executive.

Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen Parliament's powers of supervision and control over the executive. Once Parliament starts exercising oversight powers, Parliament is also involved in the administration. This in turn will lead to consultation between the Cabinet and Parliament in regard to policy matters. The end result will be a stronger Parliament. Parliament must enact the following new Constitutional provisions and laws for this purpose.

1. A provision to specify the objectives of the Constitution. In some countries like South Africa, these are referred to as 'values'. The following are the proposed objectives;

i Safeguarding territorial integrity and national unity

ii Upholding the sovereignty of the people

iii Non discrimination

iv Respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and human rights.

2. A Comprehensive Bill of Rights. The State and its organs will be required to respect, promote and fulfil the Bill of Rights. The Constitution as the supreme law of the land will take priority over other laws. Any law inconsistent with the Constitution will be invalid.

3. Recognition of Sri Lanka as a representative democracy and a participatory democracy and providing the mechanisms for consultation with civil society on issues of economic or social nature. Parliament will pass laws to enable the citizens and representative associations to make known their views on national issues. Institutions of Government will be required to maintain open and transparent procedures.

4. Whenever the Prime Minister is a member of a Political Party other than the Political Party which the President belongs, the President shall appoint the Ministers on the advice of the Prime Minister.

5. The President will not hold any Ministries. The Constitution and written law will specify the President's powers including the power to issue directives.

6. The Constitution shall specify the number of Ministers and Deputy Ministers. Parliament shall by written law determine the Ministries and the objectives, and assign such subjects, functions and institutions necessary to attain the objectives.

7. Unless specifically exempted by the Constitution or written law, the President shall make all decisions after consulting the Cabinet of Ministers. All official acts and decisions of the President shall be in writing and shall be counter-signed by the Prime Minister or the responsible Minister. The Prime Minister or the Minister counter-signing shall be responsible to Parliament. If a Minister finds that a Presidential act or decision is contrary to the law he shall notify the Cabinet of Ministers and shall refuse to counter-sign such act or decision.

8. The Prime Minister shall coordinate the affairs of the Government. The Prime Minister will hold only the Ministry necessary to give effect to his function. The Cabinet shall be responsible for the control of the Government, implementing legislations and upholding the objectives of the Constitution.

9. Parliament to be given the power to determine by written law the Presidential staff and their duties and functions. The Presidential staff will be answerable to Parliament. Parliament shall also by law specify the staff and other facilities for Ministers and Deputy Ministers.

10. Parliament shall, where necessary, by law (a) ensure that all executive organs are accountable to it and (b) maintain oversight of the exercise of executive authority including the implementation of legislation. Parliament shall appoint 24 Oversight Committees including High Posts, Petitions, Public Accounts, Public Enterprises, Monetary affairs and the national debt, Budget and Revenue to exercise oversight authority over the executive. Ministers will be prohibited from serving on these committees. Backbench MPs will become Chairmen of the Committees.

11. Parliament will enact the following legislations to strengthen the control of Public Finance.

i. A new Fiscal Management (Responsibility) Act which strengthens the Parliament's supervision powers in relation to fiscal matters.

ii. Public Finance Law based on Public Finance Act of New Zealand which will provide (a) a framework for Parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's management of the State's assets and liabilities including expenditure proposals, and, (b) specify the minimum reporting obligations of the Government.

iii. Public Enterprise Law which will determine the management objectives of each category of Public Enterprises and provide for the manner of Parliament supervision;

iv. A Public Loans Law which will specify the limits of Governmental authority and provide for Parliamentary control for the (a) borrowing of monies, (b)issuing of securities (c) giving of guarantees and (d) investing of monies.

v. An Audit Law to strengthen the powers for Auditing Government and a new law providing for Parliamentary supervision of the EPF and the ETF.

12. Amend the 17th Amendment to the Constitution so that the nomination to the Constitutional Council and the independent commissions takes effect in 3 weeks if the President fails to make the appointment.

13. Uncoordinated action by 3 levels of administration, Central, Provincial and Local has resulted in duplication and waste. Therefore, provision has to be made in the Constitution for the establishment of district organisations consisting of MPP, MPCC and LA Chairmen to prepare a comprehensive master plan for each district and to coordinate its implementation.

14. The President's power to dissolve Parliament will be limited to the instances specified in the Constitution.

15. I have outlined earlier the measures taken to combat corruption. These are:

a.to pass new laws to give effect to the UN Convention and the Lima Declaration;

b. to introduce after consultation a transparent procurement system based on an existing country model, and

c. to introduce an enforceable code of ethics for MPs based on Nolan Committee Report. The UK Parliament has already implemented these proposals.

16. Another urgent requirement is a new system of election to Parliament. The same system of election will also apply to provincial and local levels. This system should be based on mixed parallel system with components of constituency and PR system without preferential votes. The ratio of constituency members to the PR members will be based on the outcome of the agreement between the large and small parties in Parliament".

But, the question being asked is, why the UNP and Opposition Leader had to make these proposals at a public meeting of the party at Hendala following the opening of a Pradeshiya Sabha building and a shopping complex, and not wait till he came to office if he was certain of a Dec. 14 victory in Parliament? Party insiders say that these proposals had no co-relationship with the budget vote, and were only meant to be a discussion paper for all citizens concerned whether the UNP was in government or opposition. It also seemed to tally with much of what the JVP is complaining about the lack of good governance, and the tyranny of the Executive Presidency.