Editorial

The long wait is over; the Elections Commission, after considering the dates October 5 or 12 for the forthcoming presidential election, eventually decided to call for nominations next month for voting to take place on September 21.

There has been nothing but ‘elections’ on the agenda of the opposition parties, touting it as the panacea for all present-day problems with the question “Will there be an election in the first place” on their lips for months. Even the main constituent party in the Government has been bravely touting an election, saying they never ran away from it. The Supreme Court’s patience was also tested with frivolous actions. The president’s office dismisses all this as brouhaha—there was never a moment when constitutionally scheduled elections were not going to be held, they claim.

The forthcoming presidential election is the one that completes the term of the 2019 presidency. The incumbent President is only serving out the balance two-year period of the constitutionally permitted five-year period to which his predecessor was elected—who would have had to stand for re-election if he so wished to continue in office had he remained.

Much has been made that the incumbent in this exalted office is minus a ‘mandate’ as that 2019 mandate was given not to him but to his predecessor. That has been the narrative given currency throughout the last two years by opposition parties, some political analysts, and commentators.

What purpose did a ‘mandate’ serve if the President who received such a mandate for five years could be flung out of office by a popular uprising that came for him, physically?

What if the then-president was eliminated by force? While the Constitution would have still kicked in to find a successor through Parliament, would there have been a Parliament left to elect one? What was it that they were looking for at the time? A presidential election with the country in flames? Would the Elections Commission have even been able to call for nominations for an election at the time?

It takes a very short time to forget how perilously close the country was to a state of anarchy. Today, it is election season again, and 17 million registered voters have been at the receiving end of an information overload on the cost of living, corruption, IMF reforms, etc., on the one side, and economic stabilisation and growth rates, etc., on the other. None of the ‘wannabe’ presidents has, however, wanted to discuss the future of the Executive Presidency, for instance.

With these frontline candidates at the forthcoming elections sniffing victory and the powers that come with the Executive Presidency, only vague statements on its future, if any, are mouthed from the propaganda pulpits these days.

Only one candidate can win a presidential election, and the country will hear the victor once ensconced in office justifying the merits of the office and the losers bitterly slamming it as being too dictatorial.

It is a pity that Rs. 10 billion is being spent only on electing a president. As much as it is an election for the topmost job in the country, why cannot the occasion have been utilised for the country to vote on some outstanding issues by way of a non-binding referendum so that the country’s political leaders can gauge the opinions of the people on specific issues like the Executive Presidency, YES or NO; Provincial Councils YES or NO? They can even use the opportunity to get in on legally binding matters, like cleaning up the constitutional amendments that require a referendum.

In the USA, the presidential election comes with a host of other elections on the same ballot booklet. These are to elect State Governors to Judges and District Attorneys.

While it is too late for such considerations at the coming presidential election, at least it could be considered for the Parliamentary election that will follow. Local council elections can also be rolled into one poll to save another bundle of billions to elect yet another tier of elected representatives.

Taking Trudeau to CHOGM

 

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau was at his pathetic best once again, desperately trying to get on the good side of voters as elections approach and his approval rating plummets to below 30 percent.

The Sri Lankan media wisely ignored his latest, predictable rant referring to the ugly incidents in this country in July 1983. It no longer is newsworthy. The statement issued by his office (PMO) is clearly drafted for him by sections of the pro-separatist Sri Lankan diaspora in Canada who have forsaken their ‘homeland’. This statement refers to “thousands” who were killed during those riots and of “sexual violence”. The exaggeration enlarges with each passing decade.

The world, however, is yet to hear the Canadian PM shed a tear as a “steadfast defender of human rights” as proclaimed, on the genocide taking place in the occupied Palestinian territories. Such duplicity and hypocrisy must be embarrassing, surely, for right-thinking Canadians.

Many of those absorbed into Canada after the 1983 riots were from the north of Sri Lanka, where there was no rioting. Those from Colombo have done well for themselves in an economically better-off country and returned over the years to purchase apartments that have sprung up in the city since those dark days. They wouldn’t do so if Sri Lanka was still a dangerous place.

Mr. Trudeau is refusing to allow inter-racial amity in this country by poking his nose into it. One understands his own predicament. Seven out of ten of the Gen Z millennials say his government is not working in their interest. The Conservatives opposed to him politically are closer to this fringe group in the diaspora standing in the way of reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

Though it is said that a country’s foreign policy is an extension of its domestic policy, Sri Lanka is a friendly Commonwealth member-state with Canada. Colombo’s repeated messages to Ottawa not to compromise good relations by interfering this way for vote-bank politics are falling on deaf ears. Whosoever becomes the next President of Sri Lanka will now have to take the matter up at the next Commonwealth summit (CHOGM) in Samoa in October.