There may be important happenings in the country, as our Political Editor points out in his column, but often we seem to get embroiled in the week's developments missing out on issues that keep lingering without resolution for years.
One of the aberrations of the country's electoral system is the ability for elected representatives of the people, be they Members of Parliament or local council members, to obtain their vote from one political party and have unfettered access - a right of way as it were, often to the ruling party.
Hardly five months into an elected six-year term, to which all MPs were elected in this seventh Parliament since the 1978 Constitution, some of them have brazenly kicked their voters in the rear and gone and voted against the decision of the party from which they were elected.
Their party colleagues might call each of them Brutus, for stabbing the party, and their voters in the back, but as Shakespeare says; "For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men".
All of them, without exception have declared that they crossed over because "the country comes before the party"; which statement should normally move one to tears. Why one can't be so moved is because of the blatant hypocrisy in this.
Crossovers or voting across party lines is nothing new. Arguably, the most famous instance was when the late S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike crossed the floor of the House only a few years after Independence. But then, he formed his political party and sat in the Opposition sacrificing a Cabinet portfolio for what he felt was a greater cause, at least in so far as his own political fortunes were concerned.
There were isolated cases of MPs switching allegiance from time-to-time and of course, the 1964 crossover to the Opposition by a fair section of MPs which resulted in the collapse of the then Sirima Bandaranaike Government. This was a significant moment in Sri Lanka's parliamentary history.
MPs would switch sides often close to an election when they knew the chips were down for their party, or when the chances were that their party might not give them nominations to re-contest. Nowadays, the trend has been different. Other than for the 2001 mass defections to the Opposition, it has been one-way traffic from the Opposition to the Government benches. A rare exception might be the crossover of the incumbent Deputy Leader of the main Opposition party, who returned to the Opposition after a brief stint as a Government Cabinet Minister.
What are the rights of an MP to cross over? And how do these rights correspond with the rights of the voter - the franchise holder, so to say, of the electorate not to have the candidate he voted for jump sides often even before he or she could wash away the indelible ink from his or her finger as proof of voting?
The party whip and the conscience vote are two mechanisms that have a long parliamentary tradition and which dictate the parliamentary life of an MP in countries like Sri Lanka which have largely modelled their Legislature on the lines of the Mother of Parliaments - the British House of Commons.
These twin aspects -- the party whip and the conscience vote -- ensure that an MP elected by the people's votes according to the dictates of the party to which he/she belongs, but permits him or her the escape from the 'whip' to vote according to his or her conscience if a decision of the party is in sharp contradiction with his or her view.
There's nothing of the sort now. Elected MPs secretly consort with the 'enemy'; some of them are open to 'treats'; some have massive debts to settle; some just want the plums of office that are freely distributed by the powers-that-be in search of total dominance of Parliament and the political landscape. But they are all honourable men, and that is how they are addressed in the august assembly.
The fact that MPs left their coalition partners and voters in the lurch a mere five months after a General Election voted them into their seats in the national assembly has probably not been condemned enough. One of the reasons could be the sheer disgust and apathy with which the entire political process in the country is viewed by the real stake-holders -- the people -- the voters, in whose name sovereignty rests.
In April this year, on the eve of the General Elections, we predicted this unholy situation. The writing was on the wall with 7,000 candidates begging for the manape (preferential vote) some of whom knowing jolly well that they would switch sides should their party end up the loser. We referred to the 'so-called mandate of the people' and how even court decisions in recent years have prevented parties taking disciplinary action against truant members.
The District Courts are filled with stay orders preventing parties from expelling elected members who have crossed over, and these remain for years allowing them to carry on regardless. We saw the farcical instance of an MP who has joined the Government and contested a local council seat entering Parliament from the Opposition list because his name was next in line after a previous MP from the Opposition had died.
We predicted, and it was easy to predict, that the ruling party was favoured to win but that the Proportional Representation (PR) system would prevent it from obtaining the150 seats in Parliament that would give it the two-thirds, and that the government would be 'offering carrots' to reach this magical figure.
While it is the prerogative of the elected MP (leave alone a selected MP - the National List MP) to vote against the party line, it is equally incumbent on him or her to ensure that those who voted for him or her are not left in the lurch, ruing their choice but unable to do anything about it.
This issue will, no doubt, be of no concern to the Government happy as it is with mustering their two-thirds majority to do as it pleases with Parliament and the passing of laws. But it remains an aberration, nevertheless, in Sri Lanka's political process. |
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