Editorial

Despite all the powers now vested in the Executive Presidency with the passage of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, the Government seems compelled to submit that not only the sovereignty, but also the safety of the people is vested only with themselves.

It is almost like when the all-powerful Executive President of yesteryear, J.R. Jayewardene, at wits’ end with terrorist bombs exploding all around conceded that the people would have to look after themselves. He was roasted for saying that and seemingly abdicating the Government’s responsibility for the safety of its citizens.

And yet, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is right. There’s so much a Government can do if the people do not look after themselves. It is the same story around the world where people ignore health warnings and demand individual freedoms while the COVID-19 pandemic takes a deadly toll.

After what seems to have been a long hard look at the situation, the Government has decided to take the lid off the imposition of lockdowns and curfews and allow the opening up of the country, and the economy to near normalcy. The onus is now squarely on the people to look after themselves with a mere “request” for cooperation in following health guidelines.

There is no question that it is not for want of trying that the Government has all but given up taking upon itself the sole responsibility for controlling the pandemic come this second wave with reportedly a new and more virulent strain of the virus. However, there’s another critical side to the Government’s handling of the crisis.

The Attorney General is vigorously pursuing the case behind the emergence of the Minuwangoda garment factory cluster but the country’s recent track record of such investigations shows that such exercises end with a media headline.

The new Minister of Justice may well consider giving a Magistrate investigation powers without relying on a ‘B’ report from the Police like in France. The Police are far too politicised even with a Police Commission in place, their independence compromised by having to protect those in power and witch-hunting those in the Opposition. Not that the politicians will stop interfering with the Magistrates, but at least there will be a secondary arm to the country’s criminal investigations procedure.

The recent spike in case numbers tested betrays what is rotten in the political system. A vast number of voters hoped a non-political Executive President who wasn’t hamstrung by the vagaries of parliamentary politics would “clean the swamp”. The incumbent in office will probably feel that is easier said than done. Several persons of influence are taking advantage of the situation to feather their own nests.

While the Government Task Force was quick to grab early kudos for its handling of the pandemic, the recent surge in numbers, including fatalities, has drawn flak. Increasing accounts of infighting, jealousies and ego battles are filtering through the grapevine driving the Force into disarray.

In Parliament and in the media, there are legitimate questions raised why the Government is not invoking the 2005 Disaster Management Act. This law was introduced after the December 2004 tsunami caught the country unprepared. It calls for an All Party conclave and the declaration of a ‘state of disaster’, or a national calamity which is what the pandemic is now. Even if it is not a national calamity, it is on the cusp of one and being prepared is not a bad thing. Section 25 of the Act interprets a “disaster” to include a pandemic.

This group is to be headed by the President and includes the Prime Minister, the Opposition Leader, certain Ministers, the Tri-Forces and the Police, health officials and others. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. The Government took an awfully long time to introduce even a gazette notification under the archaic Infectious Diseases laws to empower health officials to act, when a law was already in existence gathering dust.

It may be time to expand the existing Task Force and engage Opposition MPs and a wider circle of the Government’s own Ministers and public servants without relying only on the military to deliver the goods. Clearly, it is not a time for the Opposition to score political points but if the Government sidelines them, they will likely take that route. It would be good for the military as well, as its credibility is now taking a beating in what people are seeing as a losing battle, albeit one that needs to be won.

Biden presidency and what awaits Lanka

 After a bitterly contested election, a complicated electoral process and a protracted nail-biting finish with a razor thin majority for the winner, watched the world over, the people of the United States of America (USA) have elected their President for the next four years.

In the process, the ‘Land of the free and home of the brave’ did no favours to its boast of being a model democracy that ensures a peaceful changing of the guard.

The incumbent faced the ignominy reserved for a very few — just one term in office and is threatening to go to the politicised conservative Supreme Court seeking salvation. Wild horses may not drag him from the White House in January when he has to make way for his successor.

He promised to make ‘America great again’ but only turned his country into the Divided States of America. Internationally, he was the arrogant, stereotypical ‘Ugly American’.

The advent of President-elect Joe Biden may be a ray of hope that the US will return to sanity. But he could well be a lame duck President with the Senate still controlled by his political opponents. Moreover, the outgoing President is not likely to depart without inciting some of his 87 million Twitter followers and 70 million voters to create mischief.

A Biden Administration is not necessarily good news for the Government in Sri Lanka though. While the Republicans gave priority to doing business on a “what’s in it for us” basis, the Democrats like to preach abroad.

US Presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have not always been paragons of virtue.  Captives of the Establishment, especially its military machine, their ambition to play policeman of the world doesn’t sit well universally. Their advocacy of human rights and democracy as their North Star of foreign policy is hypocrisy personified.

Sri Lanka might see the US revisiting the resolution against it at the UNHRC. Last week, the TNA leader met the Indian envoy and asked for an appointment with the pro-US Indian PM. They may be preparing to stir the communal pot here again as the Colombo Government is perceived as pro-China. Otherwise, a Biden victory, brings some prospects of a steadying period ahead in a time of global crisis.