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A
thought for Executive Committees It was a sign of the times, and a sign of things to come as well. Last Thursday's theatrics in the country's supreme Legislature spoke for itself. Mariakade, the local Billingsgate paled into insignificance as 'abducted' monks who resigned from the elections found their way to Parliament, and those who were given a fiat by a guerrilla leader to quit unable to be present. The election of the Speaker was expected to be a close call, and the final outcome was a stinging set- back to President Chandrika Kumaratunga's fledgling new Government. Already unable to come to an amicable settlement with her coalition ally, the JVP, over cabinet portfolios, three weeks after winning the April 2 General Election, Thursday's defeat was critical. Her plans for the future are now in tatters, so to say. Her bona fides in a controversial procedure to change the Constitution on the eve of her own departure as Executive President were no doubt in question. The minority parties rallied together, while the Buddhist monks showed more political savvy than expected from a group that has renounced worldly matters, when they played tit-for-tat for what was done unto them by the new government. The short-term greed to grab political power has resulted in instability in Parliament. And it has cost the national purse over Rs. 850 million smackers too, except that President Kumaratunga will - the JVP notwithstanding - have her own cabinet to work with.. Thursday's defeat in Parliament, however, has indeed shaken the new government. There is little purpose in re-assuring the Nation that the new government will carry on regardless, come-what-may when the wheels of government are still not in motion, and the President is unable to form her complete cabinet. The signals have been bad these past three weeks. It’s almost as if the government is a rudderless ship, and no issue made the point clearer than the crushing of the LTTE breakaway group when Colombo conveniently looked the other way, in the belief that what they did not see, did not happen. The new government claims that it has an overwhelming mandate from the people, and complains that, despite this, they did not get a working majority in Parliament, nor a Speaker of their choice. It is true that the new government obtained a clear mandate in the country, but outside the central, northern and east eastern provinces. The central, northern and eastern provinces are also part of Sri Lanka, and that is what the new government and everybody else other than the separatists say. So, if these provinces are part of the one-country, the new government must concede the fact that they did not receive a mandate in those provinces. The scenes that were seen last Thursday in the House will surely be re-enacted over and over, and the signs are that given a preview as we had, that august assembly is going to look more and more like a 'mad-house' in the weeks ahead. Earlier we had a lame-duck President with a government in control of Parliament to push its legislative programme, including the budget, through. Now we seem to have inherited a reinvigorated President but with a lame-duck majority in Parliament that will find getting its legislative programme operational in fits and starts. In the context of things, whether the government likes or hates it, if parliamentary government and consensus government is to click, there is a greater need to revert to the old Executive Committee system of all-party governance via parliamentary committees for each Ministry. This was what we had in the old, pre-Independence; pre-political party era of the State Council. There is no harm in going back in time, if that's what's good for the country. Otherwise, the prognosis for the immediate future of this country is anything but exhilarating. |
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