Entrances and exits: Will Chandrika say goodbye? What will W'witz do?
GLOBALLY: Four days after the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers occurred, Paul Wolfowitz was arguing in Camp David that the US should invade Iraq - and this was even before Afghanistan. But this suggestion was too much even for the aggressive war cabinet of George. W. Bush. Wolfowitz the architect of the war on Iraq was forced to restrain himself, but not for long.

The U.S did attack Iraq, on the rationale that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Who planted the germ of the idea in the U.S people's minds that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction in his possession? Why, it was none other than Paul Wolfowitz of course…..

Today, as one U. N weapons expert said, it's acknowledged even by George. W. Bush that not even a jam jar's worth of Weapons of Mass Destruction was found in Iraq. In the light of this, the President of the United States and Paul Wolfowitz are now advancing a completely different reason for their invasion of Iraq. They say it was to free the Iraqi people from oppression and to spread the gospel of democracy that they decided to marched on Baghdad.

This same Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the war on Iraq which has cost phenomenally in terms of money and human life, can therefore be called the "idealist in chief'' of the Bush administration.

He has now been appointed to head the World Bank - - and we thought we had problems with Peter Harrold! Wolfowitz has a history of being a very staunch supporter of dictators such as Indonesia's Suharto and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. He was Ambassador to Indonesia when he was serving the State Department under the Ronald Reagan administration. He was also the State Department official in charge of Asian Affairs, hence his support for dictators such as Marcos. Appointing Wolfowitz to head the World Bank therefore is tantamount to appointing a well know international tough, a manager and champion of dictators, to run the affairs of a bank that deals with issues of debt and structural adjustment in developing countries such as ours. We can only imagine the consequences in this appointment for Third World countries. Peter Harrold said things to the effect that the LTTE runs un-unofficial state (denied lamely) - - and he certainly said the LTTE is a legitimate stakeholder in the aid issue. But Paul Wolfowitz has had high tea with a mass murderer such as Suharto? What might he do with Prabhakaran? Announce that the World Bank will extend aid only to him and the LTTE, while excluding the Sri Lankan government altogether?

LOCALLY: Junius Rex carried off a Referendum, and he rolled up the Sri Lankan electoral map for six years with the aid of his dubious lamp and pot ballot, calling the whole scheme vox populi! The entire exercise was patently illegal, because it robbed the people of their right to franchise.

But it is the best example of something wrong/and or illegal done "legally.'' Jayewardene had a five-sixths parliamentary majority behind him, and according to his Constitution, a Referendum and a two thirds-majority could justify almost anything.

But a five-sixth or even two thirds-majority is what Chandrika Kumaratunga does not have, and therefore her chances of abolishing the Executive Presidency - - which should be a perfectly legal thing to do in contrast to robbing people of their franchise as Jayewardene did - - are almost non existent.

But yet, the reality is that she is flirting with the idea of a non-biding Referendum in which she will ask the people the question "is the Executive Presidency good for the country?''

If the people say no, then she reasons out that she can use the persuasive power of that answer to convene a Constituent Assembly to abolish the Executive Presidency. Or else, she feels that by the time the Referendum is done with, she can muster enough support from the opposition (i.e: crossovers such as Bogollagama) to obtain the sufficient two-thirds in parliament.

In both eventualities (Constituent assembly or parliament) she will have to obtain at least two thirds of the support of the members of the House, without which her constitutional manoeuvre will not even have a thin veneer of respectability. As a former Constitutional Affairs Minister K. N. Choksy was quoted as saying recently "anything done under such a constitutional exercise will not have the force of law.''

But what if the Supreme Court ratifies such an arrangement, or opines for example that a Constituent Assembly is legal - - or that a two-thirds majority is not necessary to ratify a new constitution at such a Constituent Assembly?

That will clearly be Supreme Court rule over the constitutional Rule of Law in the country. In simpler terms, the President will be treading very close to suspending all constitutional and legal rights of the people.

Some say that the preponderance of indications is that this is exactly what she wants to do. G. L. Peiris, another former Constitutional Affairs Minister for instance, has been saying this to an increasingly distracted audience. He has been rather vehement in his assertion that the jailing of S. B. Dissanayake and the imposition of emergency rule are all indications that the President is willing to go the whole hog in the direction of imposing an authoritarian and despotic regime on the people.

Can the President do something that is even more "illegal'' than what J. R. Jayewardene did, even if it’s for the entirely ''legal'' (if not valid) purpose of abolishing the Executive Presidency. That's after granting that she will be doing so entirely with her personal long-term political interests at heart.

She can possibly rationalise for instance that she is using '"illegal'' means to do something that "valid and necessary'' and can even extend the argument to say 'it's better than J. R. Jayewardene's ''legal'' manoeuvre to do something patently invalid and illegal i.e: cancelling elections and suspending the people's rights of franchise with the aid of a Referendum.'

The guess is that however "legal'' her end objective is - - the methods are far too extreme and far too unlawful to even contemplate. Even with an almost completely cowed and supine opposition, such a move in this post tsunami atmosphere of intense international focus on the country seems to be unthinkable, unless Chandrika Kumaratunge wants to go down in history as a terrible dictator who subverted the country's democracy (….at an entirely wrong moment at that..)

Therefore, what seems to be her tactic? Perhaps, to whip up the opposition into a hysteria, to make them say "here is a dictator in the making, the writing is on the wall.''

While the opposition is thus screaming blue murder, she may go ahead and do the most democratic thing that she is expected to do - have elections on time, and nominate the next candidate from her coalition (or her party) for the Presidency.

This way, the opposition can be painted as a bunch of fear-mongering rabble rousers, and she can simultaneously hug the moral high ground. Perhaps she can return to parliament as non-Executive Prime Minister under her own President's rule, or she can opt to be elder stateswoman, pulling the strings from behind for her party's President. But, if the UNP candidate wins, she can decide to say goodbye, effectively, to her political career. Will she risk that, or will she risk everything including her image for posterity because she will never want to risk the fate of early retirement? It's the most suspenseful wait-and-see of this political decade.

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