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A
snap poll The ground had been set by their new-found allies of the newly formed "Sandanaya" (Alliance). The State media, now under the control of the SLFP's media mafia- with the only dissenting voice attending a breakfast prayer meeting in far away Washington DC, had laid the platform for the charge. It looked as if the Night of the Long Knives was in motion. That was to the left of the President. To the right was international pressure not to hold Elections and thereby disrupt the fragile peace process with the LTTE. Some of them felt that the only winners of an Election would be the JVP - and the LTTE, and the inevitable losers, the mainstream SLFP and UNP - the latter in a volte-face prepared to cohabit under the Republic's complicated Constitution. While the President was in this unenviable dilemma, some of it brought upon her by herself, the vast mass of the citizenry watched the power-play of the country's political forces with disdain. A simple question arises from such a scenario. The question whether a political President, a.k.a the Executive President should be entitled to dissolve a Parliament duly elected for six years, without the consent of the coalition that has the majority in such a Parliament. In any parliamentary democracy, a ruling party can call for early elections, but only as long as they have a majority in the Legislature. Ex-facie, for the President to call an early parliamentary election without the consent of the majority in that Parliament is tantamount to dictatorship. One could almost visualise the knives being drawn out to say that this is an argument that comes from reactionary forces, for this outdated jargon is being re-introduced to the political lexicon of today. And yet, the argument remains. Can a President - the Constitution provides for it - so let us re-phrase it, should a President, be entitled to call General Elections at her political whim and political fancy? The proponents calling for Elections are not meeting this argument. Their argument, whether accurate or otherwise, is purely based on political advantages. They launch a constitutional insurgency to grab the seats of civic power. There is no apparent place for this moral argument. Why must the country go to vote for a third time in a little over four years when they have voted a coalition that has a majority in Parliament? And what if this coalition is voted back? Will it be another election year thereafter? These are not hypothetical questions, but real issues in Sri Lanka's turbulent political context. There appears to be no concern for acute voter-fatigue, nor for any time to settle down. The country is in a perpetual period of 'nonagathe' or no-work, immobility and uncertainty. A continuous period of drama - and suspense. The President made some soul-searching comments during her address to the Nation on Independence Day this week. Among them; " I wish to stress here that the responsibility for ensuring the existing negative political culture ends - lies with the leadership of the two main political parties". You can say that again. |
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