In the days ahead President Rajapaksa is set to stage yet another political coup that will leave his opponents in greater disarray than ever before. Of course the spadework has already been done, as the lawmakers prepare for a travesty of a debate to take place on Sept 8. The result is a foregone conclusion with government confident of 154 MPs ‘in the bag’ to ensure the passage of the 18th Amendment that would allow the President to contest the office any number of times. These developments have been described as moves to install a “president for life.”
In the run-up to the parliamentary elections earlier this year when government MPs exhorted the voters to give them a two thirds majority, there was a notable vagueness as to what they proposed to do with it. (Some naively imagined it was for constitutional amendments that would produce a political solution to the ethnic issue.) Well, now we know.
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| President Rajapaksa and SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem at a recent event- File Photo |
A chameleon-like SLMC, that won eight parliamentary seats after contesting on the UNP-led Opposition ticket, has announced its decision to lend its support to the new Bill. (Nobody knows at this point what the trade-off was, in exchange for this vital support. It must surely be something more than a helicopter-ride to Divulapitiya.) The defections so far, including those of UNP’s Abdul Cader and Opposition alliance members Palani Digambaram and Prabha Ganesan, seem to have had less to do with matters of principle than considerations of political expediency.
With the position of the government’s five Left MPs still in the balance, there seems to be a last-minute scramble to secure a few more turncoats from the UNP fold (perhaps as a form of “insurance” in the event the Left group decides to abstain or vote against the Bill, leaving the government short of the required 150 votes). In the past 72 hours UNP MPs Earl Gunasekera, Lakshman Seneviratne and Manusha Nanayakkara have announced they will be voting with the government. Whether the Left group will take a principled, independent stand remains to be seen. MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara has reminded reporters that the Combined Left Front consistently stood for the abolition of the Executive Presidency. They are expected to announce their stance on Monday.
Given the degree of power with which the office of Executive President is vested, the move to remove the few ‘checks and balances’ there are in the form of a term-limit, and the provisions of the 17th Amendment, have caused alarm among those who cherish democratic values. The indecent haste with which the Bill is being pushed through and the lack of opportunity for public debate as a result, are further cause for concern.
The UNP has to take much of the blame for this pathetic state of affairs. Yet again, Ranil Wickremesinghe demonstrated a singular lack of political savvy (or is it cunning?) in allowing himself and his party to be sleep-walked into this trap. Having run - a little too quickly - to engage in ‘talks’ with the government, he is now left to explain what on earth he achieved, since nothing has changed. The present scenario seems to illustrate a classic case of “everything has to change so that everything stays the same” (to quote the famous line from ‘The Leopard.’)
We now have party Secretary Tissa Attanayake declaring they are ‘against’ the amendment, an angry Dayasiri Jayasekera lambasting the party hierarchy for going into talks without a clue as to what was in store, and Wickremesinghe reduced to incoherent mumbling. There has been merely an appearance of consultation with the Opposition, whereas actually nothing has been conceded. The UNP leader has been checkmated again, adding to the embarrassment he already faces within his party with mounting pressure for him to step down.
Another travesty of justice in recent times was the ‘verdict’ that cleared soon-to-be-reinstated Deputy Minister Mervyn Silva of wrongdoing in his latest vile, attention-grabbing performance, witnessed on TV by the whole country. One wonders how Minister Maithripala Sirisena managed to keep a straight face while announcing that the Samurdhi officer concerned had produced an affidavit to say he had ‘tied himself’ to a tree to further the noble cause of dengue prevention. This affidavit must surely go down in the annals of legal history for the level of high farce it represents.
Meanwhile the Ministry of External Affairs and the Foreign Employment Bureau continue to adopt an attitude of moral indignation in relation to the case of the tortured housemaid Ariyawathie. This may be for the benefit of an outraged public. But the Lankan authorities should know that no matter how many ‘requests’ they may make, there is nothing to compel the Saudi government to take action since there is no agreement to that effect at a government-to-government level. It is extremely unlikely that the Saudi authorities will prosecute one of its own nationals in a case relating to an expatriate worker. This is only too evident from the peculiar statement issued by the Saudi Embassy in Colombo expressing ‘doubts’ about Ariyawathie’s case. Does the embassy seek to suggest her wounds were self-inflicted? Or received ‘in transit’ from Riyadh to Colombo?’
It appears that the government does not make too many demands from host countries with regard to Sri Lankan migrant workers, for fear of losing the West Asian market for housemaids. Ironically it is the Saudis that have threatened to ‘ban’ housemaids from certain countries (Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia) claiming that they “do not suit local customs and traditions.” In May this year they reportedly stopped hiring housemaids from Indonesia following Jakarta’s demand for higher wages.
Remittances from Sri Lankan migrant workers reached US$ 3.3 billion last year. This figure financed over 100% of the trade deficit, latest Central Bank figures reveal. In 2008, remittances covered 48%, in 2007, 68 % and in 2006, 64% of the trade deficit. As this column mentioned last week, ‘a death a day’ is the price we pay for the labour exodus to countries that have scant regard for the rights of expatriate workers. If the government wants to persist in exporting labour in view of the benefit to the economy, it must find ways to ensure the safety and dignity of these workers abroad. It is unacceptable to bridge the deficit over the dead bodies of Sri Lanka’s poorest women.
The writer is a senior freelance journalist. |
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