Microscope on Mahinda
era
- As a politician he shines, but where does
he stand as a statesman after one year at the helm as President?
If Mahinda Rajapaksa the presidential candidate
was splitting hairs over whether a final solution was to be within
a 'unitary' or 'united' Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa as President now stands
accused of not having any unit of devolution on offer.
When Arahath Mahinda arrived in this country some
2253 years ago, he is said to have chastised King Devanampiyatissa
about his hunting habits, admonishing the King that he was not the
country's ruler but its trustee and protector.
Nearly a year ago, when Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa,
assumed office as Sri Lanka's fifth Executive President at a hastily
arranged ceremony at the Presidential Secretariat on the 19th of
November 2005, he too assured his countrymen that he was not their
ruler but someone to whom their nation had been temporarily entrusted
to.
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President Rajapaksa: One year is too short
a period to judge his performance |
President Rajapaksa — or at least his speechwriter
— obviously had his eye on history and derived inspiration
from his revered namesake. One year into the Rajapaksa Presidency,
the President himself still has the chance to define this country's
contemporary history but the questions that were being asked of
Rajapaksa a year ago worryingly remain-and there appears to be no
one to admonish him either.
Rajapaksa's election to the highest office in
the land followed the closest and most acrimonious presidential
election campaign in the country. His principal opponent, Ranil
Wickremesinghe would be justified in feeling he was cheated of victory
because of the low voter turnout in the Tiger-controlled North and
East and there were many who doubted Rajapaksa's sang-froid given
his relative inexperience in statecraft even though he had been
Prime Minister for nineteen months. Entrusting Rajapaksa with the
all powerful presidency was akin to asking someone to drive a car,
after being in the passenger seat for just a short while.
In that sense, President Rajapaksa has passed
the test. The prophets of doom who forecast a return to a full-scale
war and economic ruin have been held at bay although some would
still contend that the country is on its way there. Rajapaksa's
first task was to learn on the job, and it appears he has, to some
extent at least.
This is most evident in the virtual abrogation
of the Mahinda Chinthanaya, once Rajapaksa assumed office. It will
be remembered by those who care to remember — such as the
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU)
— that key slogans of the Mahinda Chinthanaya propelled the
Rajapaksa campaign: discarding the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), evicting
Norway from its role in the peace process and insisting on a unitary
state.
The pledges may have been instrumental in swinging
Sinhala votes away from Wickremesinghe, but once that was achieved
Rajapaksa quickly changed gears. If politics is the art of the possible,
Rajapaksa has demonstrated just how gifted an artiste he is.
Winning the SLFP
Indeed, Rajapaksa must get full marks for his
sketches on the local political landscape over the past year, where
he has displayed consummate skill and cunning that would have made
J.R. Jayewardene blush and Chandrika Kumaratunga envious. That landscape,
once an ominous mix of red and blue that was threatening to maroon
the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) is now a pleasant mix of blue
oceans and lush greenery, Rajapaksa would want us to believe.
The President first began by clearing the decks
in the SLFP. An attempt by Chandrika Kumaratunga to retain the leadership
of the SLFP was clinically scuttled and Rajapaksa wrested firm control
of the party hierarchy. It was made clear to party loyalists that
continued allegiance to Kumaratunga did not pay dividends and even
seniors such as Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, Nimal Siripala de Silva
and Maithripala Sirisena quickly switched camps.
With the SLFP firmly under his wing, Rajapaksa,
the political philanderer that he is, then made advances to the
United National Party (UNP) which was smarting under a dozen electoral
defeats and the prospect of yet another long wait in the opposition
benches sans the perks and privileges of office. Not surprisingly,
two frontliners — Mahinda Samarasinghe and Keheliya Rambukwella
— and a handful of backbenchers fell for the bait.
More the merrier, Rajapaksa seems to think, for
he even made a spectacle of Mohamed Imtiyaz — the three-wheeler
driver who won the Colombo mayoralty through the UNP-sponsored spectacle
symbol — joining the SLFP!
Many in the UNP believe that the Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) Rajapaksa engineered with the major opposition
party to be an extension of the strategy of promoting crossovers
and that Wickremesinghe was wise to resist the temptation of accepting
cabinet portfolios for Rajapaksa could have then inveigled more
UNP stalwarts into joining his bandwagon.
Significantly, Rajapaksa's response to a UNP request
to include an 'anti-crossover' clause in the MOU was a definite
'no'. Therefore, it is obvious that the President has set his sights
firmly on building a parliamentary majority that would entrench
his presidency and reduce the burdens of governing with a wafer-thin
majority in the House.
Rajapaksa also courted the JVP with much ardour
but the Marxist party was insisting on its pound of flesh —
implementing the Mahinda Chinthanaya to the letter, a promise which
the President obviously cannot honour. The relationship has since
cooled, with some harsh words being said: Somawansa Amerasinghe
claiming that the SLFP belonged to the oldest profession in the
world and Maithripala Sirisena responding in style with 'bambuwa',
a comment which we now know had presidential sanction.
But not all Marxists were immune to Rajapaksa's
charms. Nandana Gunatilleke, a onetime JVP presidential candidate
is a notable recruit and there is speculation that more will follow.
If the JVP feels it got the 'karapincha' treatment — of being
used and discarded — from the President, it wouldn't be entirely
unjustified but even then, Rajapaksa's political savvy must be admired.
But it is also as if Rajapaksa spent all his energies
fortifying his hold on power in the local political arena, so much
so he appears to have focussed less attention on the wider agenda
for the nation vis-à-vis the ethnic issue.
Yes, the CFA still stands, even if it may not
be worth the paper it is written on, and yes, Erik Solheim and his
Norwegian envoys still shuttle between Colombo, Oslo and Kilinochchi
and yes, talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
are held sporadically in Geneva but is Sri Lanka any nearer to a
resolution of the ethnic question, than it was a year ago? What
is different, then, apart from the rotund Nimal Siripala de Silva
assuming the leadership of the government delegation replacing G.L.
Peiris with the lean and hungry look, one may ask?
What has been new is that under the Rajapaksa
presidency, Colombo's response to LTTE threats and offensives has
not been one of appeasement, as it was during the United National
Front (UNF) government. The government and the military have retaliated
to LTTE attacks and even scored a few military victories though
these gains may have been somewhat negated by recent setbacks, most
notably in Muhamalai and Habarana.
This shift in the military approach must be commended
but the underlying question that remains unresolved under the Rajapaksa
presidency is what the President's agenda and strategy is, for countering
the LTTE? The UNF regime, for instance, assumed office in December
2001 and had a ceasefire with the LTTE in place by February 2002.
Critics may argue that fools rushed in where angels feared to tread
but the point is that Rajapaksa, one year after assuming office
seems to be in no hurry whatsoever to formulate a cohesive overall
policy to check the LTTE.
As a result, the LTTE has now succeeded in creating
a humanitarian crisis in the North that is attracting unwelcome
international attention. Incidents such as the abduction and killing
of Tamils in the South and Friday's assassination of Tamil National
Alliance Parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj continue unabated, for
which Colombo has to take a lot of flak from the international and
donor community, not because it is responsible for these events
but because Rajapaksa's government seems strangely inept at prosecuting
the propaganda war against the Tigers.
History tells us that it is to the LTTE's advantage
to drag the ethnic conflict, delay its resolution by obstructing
the implementation of any kind of agreement that is reached and
to adopt a generally intransigent approach. Countering this would
require pressuring the Tigers diplomatically as well as militarily
but such a push must be cushioned with a genuine offer of devolution
and autonomy.
Devolution offer
If Mahinda Rajapaksa the presidential candidate
was splitting hairs over whether a final solution was to be within
a 'unitary' or 'united' Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa as President now stands
accused of not having any unit of devolution on offer. Maybe one
year of governance is too little time to settle an issue that percolated
for over a half a century but the Rajapaksa presidency is nowhere
near formulating a political offer, even though it too, like many
governments before it, goes through the motions of conducting all-party
conferences at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference
Hall.
The recent MOU with the UNP offers President Rajapaksa
a unique opportunity to develop a southern consensus on the ethnic
issue that has been lacking for several decades. It may be real
politik that propelled both Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe towards
the MOU, the former because of international pressures from India
and elsewhere, the latter because he was struggling for survival
within his own party but nevertheless this opportunity may not knock
twice and Rajapaksa would be foolish to spurn the chance.
If Rajapaksa has been less than 'hands-on' with
the ethnic issue, is it because he has had his hands full with other
issues? The other week his time was occupied with discussing garbage
disposal within the Colombo Municipal Council. Is that a subject
that warrants presidential attention, especially when he has nearly
a hundred ministers at his disposal? Or, is having a hundred ministers
itself a part of the problem?
On the economic front too, there has been nothing
worth writing home about, under the Rajapakse regime. Prices of
consumer goods have kept steadily escalating and any relief measures
— apart from a piece-meal wage hike — has yet to trickle
down to the masses. In a six-year tenure of office it is early days
yet and the public will not grudge Rajapaksa some more time on the
economic battlefront. But the President will do well to realise
that one of the major contributory factors for the defeat of the
Wickremesinghe-led administration in April 2004 was the failure
of economic reforms to reach the masses after two years of incumbency.
The Rajapaksa presidency, at least in its first
year, will also not score high on any index of good governance and
some glaring lapses will question the sincerity of the President
himself.
For instance, the practice of roping in opposition
Parliamentarians by offering them the privileges of ministerial
office has resulted in cabinet meetings becoming almost a Parliamentary
group meeting. The public is acutely aware of this, especially since
the economy has done nothing spectacular and living has become a
daily struggle for the average citizen.
Then, the conduct of some of these ministers are
less than exemplary. We have ministers such as Rohitha Bogollagama
who take their bag, baggage, wife and son — the whole household,
except for the pet poodle — for peace talks with the LTTE,
at public expense.
The issue is highlighted in the media and when
it is time for the second round of peace talks, it happens all over
again! Then, we have Anura Bandaranaike, a minister who is not on
talking terms with his ministry secretary and the functions of the
entire Tourism Ministry — overseeing a vital sector of our
economy — are compromised as a result. Yet another minister,
Jeevan Kumaratunge is linked with a visa scam. Of course, he does
not resign because, as Sunil Perera of the Gypsies will tell you
in his popular song, all this happens in 'Apey Lankaave'.
Mahinda Rajapaksa is of course President of that
'Lankaava' and the public would look to him to stem the rot. After
all, this is only the first year of his government and if Ministers
are allowed to run amok in this manner, all hell would break loose
at the end of five years and Rajapaksa himself would be held to
account, simply for not taking remedial action.
It is here that some of Rajapaksa's own actions
will be put under the microscope. For instance there was a lot of
debate about the 17th Amendment to the Constitution and the appointment
of the Constitutional Council, but since his assumption of office,
Rajapaksa doesn't appear to be running hither and thither, trying
to get matters moving. Appointments to the Elections Commission,
the National Police Commission and the Permanent Commission to Investigate
Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, among other institutions,
are held up calling to question Rajapaksa's commitment to good governance.
Other appointments that President Rajapaksa has
handed out also raise the issue of whether rewarding political affiliations
should be at the expense of public institutions. An accountant with
some queries over his alleged involvement in a pyramid scheme heads
the Central Bank, a teacher has replaced a Professor of Paediatrics
as the Head of the National Child Protection Authority and a popular
singer is now the Governor of the North Central Province.
We are not for a moment suggesting that any of
these appointments are in anyway improper or that these men and
women are incompetent, but does the President have the all important
knack of picking the right man (or woman) for the right job?
Then there was the rather undiplomatic tongue-lashing
the President meted out to Sri Lankan diplomats who were summoned
from all over the world to the Presidential Secretariat. A diplomatic
posting is not a retirement plan for old faithfuls to educate their
children overseas and a professional approach to the job was needed,
Rajapaksa ranted.
Countering criticisms
Next, we hear that Kingsley Wickremeratne, SLFP
old hand, ex-Trade Minister and ex-Governor of the Southern Province
is to be appointed Sri Lanka's ambassador to China. Of course, the
good Wickremeratne, professional that he is, may prove a fine ambassador
but Rajapaksa's words would now sound rather hypocritical to many
of the career diplomats who were present that day!
Much like his predecessors, Chandrika Kumaratunga
or Ranasinghe Premadasa, Rajapaksa also seems to get a little touchy
about criticism, but he seems to clearly distinguish between how
much the state media is permitted to critique his adminstration
vis-a-vis the private media. Generally, Rajapaksa, who was dubbed
the 'reporter' by Kumaratunga when she was president, has maintained
cordial relations with the media and his skirmishes with the fourth
estate have been few.
One can only hope that Rajapaksa's tolerance levels
will grow with his presidency if he wishes to preserve at least
a semblance of media freedom in the country.
Overall, then, is the country better off than
it was a year ago? Now we do have a President who is usually punctual,
someone who doesn't lose his temper publicly and accuse all and
sundry of all kinds of conspiracies. He appears to still retain
his common touch and his people skills are probably the best in
Sri Lankan politics.
There haven't been any schemes for personal aggrandisement,
not yet and not on the scale of some of his predecessors anyway
although there have been some murmurs of discontent about the 'Rajapakshakaranaya'
of government, alluding to the involvement of siblings Chamal, Gotabhaya
and Basil in decision making.
President Rajapaksa, by his own admission, is
only the caretaker of the country and that too only for six years
at present. But is being better than your predecessor enough to
make a good President, let alone a great one?
Or are we destined for yet another presidency
where, at the end of it, there would be nothing to show in terms
of tangible achievements or as indicators of progress as a nation?
Mahinda Rajapaksa, we are sure, has one aspiration
and that is that he wouldn't wish his presidency to be remembered
in the same manner as that of Chandrika Kumaratunga's. If that is
to happen though, the President has a lot more to learn on the job
— and he should learn it pretty fast too.
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