Editorial

Come hell or high water; come multiple defeats in Parliamentary votes and continuing chaos in the country, President Maithripala Sirisena is not going to budge from disengaging from his October 26 putsch and re-setting the direction of this country.

This country is not a President’s private coconut estate to appoint a superintendent of his personal choice. He must abide by the Constitution and if it says the President “shall appoint” an MP who is likely to command the majority of Parliament, he must do so without prevaricating or vacillating as he is doing now.

The only thing certain about the Government of Mahinda Rajapaksa, propped up by the President, is that it will spin out the prevailing uncertainty in the country till December 7 in the hope that a fresh Supreme Court bench will untie the hands of the President from calling for fresh parliamentary elections.

That hope in the Rajapaksa camp is Plan B after attempts — still continuing — to rustle up a majority in Parliament fell flat. The only way to re-set the setback is an election as far as the Rajapaksa camp is concerned with the belief that the agitation for democracy is merely city-based while its popular support in rural Sri Lanka remains unchanged from its resounding victory at the local government polls earlier this year.

The UNP-led UNF, on the other hand, is also waltzing into a make-believe world that the entire country has galvanised behind the party to save democracy from pocket edition autocrats. Democracy is not always given top priority when a cocktail of joblessness, rising cost of living a.k.a. ‘food on the table’ sprinkled with nationalistic sentiments are at play. The UNF, however, must hand the President a bouquet for helping the party, constantly battling intra-party dissension and leadership challenges, to come together.

Temple Trees, the official residence of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka has become a lively address of the ‘people’s resistance’ to anti-democratic forces as our news item last week pointed out. Those who have come to express their solidarity to “their Prime Minister” still consider Ranil Wickremesinghe the de jure Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, one month after the miscalculated constitutional coup of October 26.

Some of them even believe that all this is a blessing in disguise and will not mind an election as it will be the Sirisena-Rajapaksa combo that will face the anti-incumbency fallout as there are no signs of the economy’s woes easing. There appear now hints of an escape route being mapped out for the President to re-establish the October 26 status quo ante, and hold provincial council elections to save face in the country and among the world at large. The week to come, however, will probably see the bickering continue and the stalemate with it.

The world is watching

The chronic situation in Sri Lanka is not only watched with eager eyes and ears domestically, but so, too, internationally. It is a matter of equal significance to the ‘Modi’s’ (foreign governments) and the ‘Moody’s’ (foreign rating agencies).

The matter could get complicated if some countries recognise the new government, and others don’t. This is going to split the country into two camps from a global perspective. Already some Colombo-based Western diplomats are tweeting and commenting on the crisis. It is well within the remit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon them to the Foreign Office either individually or collectively and remind them of the protocols in these matters.

Seeing the planned UNF/civil society call for a satyagraha with suspicious eyes, the new government is accusing the West of trying to instigate an ‘Arab Spring’ here. On the other hand, Russia and China are showing allegiance with the new government. These divisions don’t augur well for Sri Lanka that has, by and large, resisted falling into one of the two camps – the West versus the Rest.

The 52-nation Commonwealth, of which Sri Lanka has long been a member, takes a dim view of military coups and the ouster of democratically elected governments. It has suspended Nigeria, Pakistan (twice), Fiji etc., and a few years back, closer home, the Maldives. The case of the Maldives was not entirely a military take-over.

What happened in Sri Lanka is very similar to what happened in the Maldives. It is not without precedence for the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) comprising ten foreign ministers from member-states that study these happenings in the Commonwealth to act on the Harare Principles of Good Governance. In this instance, a President overthrew his own democratically elected government. Commonwealth leaders must be scratching their heads how to deal with this one-of-a-kind ‘coup’.

Recently, when the army in Zimbabwe overthrew long-time President Robert Mugabe, the Commonwealth remained silent. Kissing goes by favour in that Group dominated by nations known as the ‘white Commonwealth’. President Mugabe was hated by the ‘white Commonwealth’, so selectively, the CMAG turned a Nelsonian-eye because the Zimbabwe army quickly passed the country’s leadership to Mugabe’s political opponents.

It is not only foreign governments that have shown concern on the constitutional logjam in Sri Lanka. International rating agencies that indicate the credit-worthiness of a country have raised red flags and alarm bells. Their ratings can be pooh-poohed domestically, and the Central Bank is hotly disputing the recent downgrading of Sri Lanka, but they are important for a country living on borrowed money. International money-lenders take these ratings into account and so do foreign investors who keep an eye on the economic and political stability of a country before putting their cash down.

This again opens the doors to countries like China, ever willing to step in to fill the vacuum left by reluctant Western banks. Mindful of the accusations against it, China recently denied it was its policy to have countries (like Sri Lanka) fall into debt traps so they can have a stranglehold on them. But this is exactly what has befallen Sri Lanka, not entirely due to Chinese loans, however.

And what is worse, the country is now faced with a government that cannot pass any money bills in Parliament, and for now relies on the Active Liability Management Act introduced by the Wickremesinghe government which allows the government to approve borrowing money for three months without parliamentary approval.  The problem will be the day Parliament says it will not honour these sovereign loans. What an unholy mess this is.