Editorial
Have fixed day for elections
View(s):A Presidential proclamation has been made this week calling for a Presidential election which will be held on January 8, 2015. There is great debate on the eligibility of the incumbent President contesting a third consecutive time. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court opinion giving the predictable thumbs up for the President to contest, the intention of the controversial 18th Amendment was clearly to allow the incumbent to come forward again clearing the two-term hurdle.
In the flush of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s victory in 2010, his opponent hounded, court-martialled and jailed and the mainstream Opposition engaged in their own pitiful internecine squabbles, the President had a free run with the 18A. Apologist ministers are now showing remorse and asking the people for forgiveness for raising their hands for such a dastardly act.
The two-term limit is a debatable issue. On the one hand, it is meant to prevent a slide into authoritarianism and it must be said that signs of such a slide are very evident in Sri Lanka today. The United States, France, Russia, Iran and countries with the Presidential system of government have faithfully stuck to this principle. China, whose President is elected by the Communist Party hierarchy also has term limits.
The Russian President Vladimir Putin did some gymnastics in becoming Prime Minister in his third term and still ran the country to become President again but even he didn’t undermine the two-term principle. In Sri Lanka, too, this strategy was thought of at one stage but never implemented. There is no bar to the President contesting thrice provided it is not consecutively.
On the other hand, the argument has been that if a Prime Minister can be the Head of Government thrice or more consecutively, why not a President as long as it is the wish of the people. A Prime Ministerial dictatorship can be as bad. As we have said before, it was the second segment of the 18A that dealt a kidney punch to democracy in this country with independent, autonomous institutions viz., the Judiciary, the Police, the Public Service and Elections Department being politicised by coming under the writ of a partisan Executive President.
Opposition parties have not been able to come to terms with how to handle this situation. They are torn between sections wanting to challenge, possibly boycott the forthcoming election on the footing that it is not only illegitimate but also illegal and another saying they want to ask the people to decide the fate of the Executive Presidency. The one minus factor for the President in all this is the fact that in his election manifestos past, he pledged to abolish the Executive Presidency – and did not honour his own pledge to the people. One has to wait and see what he has to say a third time round on the subject, especially when the Opposition this week declared that it would abolish the system withing 100 days if elected to office. Like some of his predecessors, the incumbent President, now that he has experienced it at first hand, thinks it is not such a bad thing to retain, in fact, a very good thing for the country to have.
This premature election called for in January by the President not only caught the joint Opposition on the wrong foot, but also the country off guard. It was time, therefore, for a re-think on the prevailing ad-hoc way of holding these elections. The US system of fixed dates for Presidential elections does not throw the country into a frenzy depending on what the stars portend and the guessing game is not a national pastime.
Should the Presidential system be abolished, having fixed dates for Parliamentary elections is also not a bad idea to consider in whatever constitutional reforms that are being envisaged by the country’s political leaders.
SAARC: Focus on Modi
South Asian leaders meet next week at Katmandu in Nepal. The South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) summit has crept up stealthily without much ado.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa goes with an IOU to his credit for doing the Indian Prime Minister a favour by pardoning five Indian fishermen who had been sentenced to death by a Colombo court for drug trafficking (and to hell with the due legal process). He was due to tell the Indian media that he did what he did in recognition of the new direction the foreign policy of India was taking under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
SAARC has always been — next year the regional group will be 30 years old — more about bilateral relations rather than regionalism despite the fact that the SAARC Charter prohibits the discussion of bi-lateral issues that the framers thought would lead to the disintegration of the group. It is public knowledge, however, that it is these contentious issues that have bogged down the South Asian nations from forming a formidable economic bloc.
This is also the Indian PM’s first SAARC summit. By inviting SAARC leaders for his inauguration earlier this year, he showed he was committed to SAARC. Yet, he has also shown his commitment to BRICS, an emerging economic bloc with its own bank etc., and ventured to strengthening relations with the US and normalising relations with China. Independent of SAARC, all member-states are wooing China’s money into their investment projects.
Crucial agreements are on the cards in the Nepali capital next week: The free movement of commercial vehicles between borders (not so relevant to Sri Lanka maybe) and a SAARC Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation to form a kind of regional power grid to be sold to SAARC nations.
The Sampur coal power project (relevant to Sri Lanka) will see power sold to India while Sri Lanka takes the environmental fallout. India’s growing number of nuclear facilities in its southern sector is certainly an issue for Sri Lanka. There is new danger in the South Asian region arising from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a new UN study says. (Please see our INSIGHT report on Page 10.) This month, Pakistan test fired an intermediate range Shaheen 1A (Hatf IV) ballistic missile, capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads. Sri Lanka must bring into focus the need to rein in the South Asian nuclear powers in their quest to acquire ever-increasing nuclear capability.
But overall the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan is going to dominate SAARC and restrict its expansion to a greater entity. People-to-people contacts have been made tighter than ever before between SAARC countries. India’s handling of the poaching issue in Sri Lankan waters is a textbook case of Indian self-interest superseding regional cooperation. As primus-inter-pares of the SAARC, India’s leadership under the Modi dispensation will be closely watched.