Columns

When the National People’s Power (NPP) President Anura Kumara Dissanayake thunders from the political platform on the cusp of an uninspiring general election that hence-forth, ex-Sri Lankan Presidents must ‘make an application’ to be granted a residential house, is he confusing himself in thinking that he is the supreme fount of power to grant these privileges?

The folly of ex-Presidents

Certainly there is tremendous public revulsion towards ex-Presidents on whom gargantuan amounts of public money are expended to furnish luxurious residences in retirement, provide large numbers of security and staff. These numbers include ex-Presidents responsible for gross corruption and finally bankruptcy as well as a disgraced former President who fled the country with an enraged public pounding on the gates of his official residence.

So when the NPP promises to ‘change all that’, even the ranks of its sceptics would ‘scarce forbear to cheer’ as we may say, taking the liberty to borrow a line from the epic narration of Horatius. Well and good. Making sure that public funds are not wastefully expended on former Presidents is one matter. But it is quite a different matter when the President brushes aside the law and interpolates his sole dictate.

This was during a recent election rally when he proclaimed that a residence will be given to a former holder of Sri Lanka’s executive Office only if he or she is similar to an ‘Aswesuma‘ (welfare benefits given to citizens below the poverty line) beneficiary and if an application is made in that regard. ‘We will mercifully consider that’, he said to roars of rapturous applause. Put bluntly, that is descending to the cheap political gallery.

 A sordid drama on
an election platform

There is a fine line between redressing historic injustices of power and privilege on which there is no dispute and occupying the political gutter. There is also an equally fine line between (rightfully) disparaging politicians who have occupied the seat of the Executive Presidency and the Office itself which is of the State. In fact, this sordid drama on the entitlements of ex-Presidents is not necessary. Act, No 4 of 1986, (which is the relevant law, not Presidential rhetoric), is prosaic in its contents.

Section 2 states that, every former President must be provided an ‘appropriate residence free of rent’ or in the alternative an allowance equivalent to one-third of the monthly pension. There is an entitlement to a monthly secretarial allowance equivalent to the monthly salary paid to the person holding the office of Private Secretary to the President. Official transport may be provided to the level of a Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers. Apart from this, appropriate security is granted pursuant on a threat assess-ment.

This law has been characterised by its misuse, particularly so after the advent of the Rajapaksas to executive power. Funds were doled out lavishly from the public purse to keep ruling politicians in clover, along with family members and sycophants. Their adoring constituents did not utter a murmur of protest as these were the ‘men who won the war.’ That ‘scratch my back, I will scratch yours’ mentality continued under the Wickremesinghe Presidency (2022-2024).

A gullible Sri Lankan public

Former parliamentarians of Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) who had failed to be elected to Parliament, were afforded police protection. This was part of a bigger pattern of political impunity including privileges bestowed on sundry disgraced political characters, some hauled before courts of law for offences together with selected monks. That said, the blame for decades-long political abuse of Sri Lanka’s Presidential Entitlements Act, No 4 of 1986 must be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of the gullible citizen.

By itself, this relatively unremarkable law has its counterparts in the United States (1958, federal law), France (by decree, 2019) and India (1951). These laws permit publicly funded allowances, pensions and security protections to be granted to ex-leaders of those countries as befitting the state positions they once held. Thus, even though it is claimed that Sri Lanka’s 1986 law is some terrible aberration, this is not the case. The aberration comes through its endemic and egregious misuse, to be clear.

That distinction is important given the NPP’s seeking to make political capital in its demand that former Sri Lankan Presidents must be at the level of an ‘Aswesuma’ beneficiary to be granted due entitlements. First, President Dissanayake must be reminded of the folly in treading the same path as the former unlamented ex-President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who once advised public servants to replace laws, rules, regulations and circulars with his ‘word’ in carrying out their duties.

 Whence the NPP promise to abolish the Presidency?

Later, Rajapaksa ignominiously fled the country as the Government declared bankruptcy. The lesson here is that executive Presidents who, in the widely disparaged lines of King Louis XIV declare that ‘I am the State,’ face the consequences of their actions sooner or later. Second, if we hearken back to September’s presidential election promises, what of candidate Dissanayake’s assurance that the Office of the Executive Presidency will be abolished?

That would surely be the better solution to this problem rather than rhetoric on ex-Presidents and their entitlements. But a deafening silence prevails. At least to give the Rajapaksas credit, they neither promised to abolish the executive office nor the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). In that case, the leopard was known for its spots and without much demur. But the NPP campaign platform was different, prompting many ‘good governance’ citizens to vote for the AKD Presidency.

However, its performance during the past weeks does not prompt much confidence. Meanwhile, where is the outlining of steps by its policy makers to tackle Sri Lanka’s dire economic crisis as the country’s debt restructuring process lags? These refer to concrete steps that a potential NPP Government will commit to, not generic proposals in a manifesto. As important are the precise details of what transpired in the talks that the NPP’s financial ‘advisors’ have had so far with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

 A sense of confusion
in ruling ranks

These are the issues that should be at the front and centre of the NPP’s parliamentary campaign. But what we have is back-peddling on campaign promises, including replacing the repeal of the PTA with an absurd guarantee not to ‘misuse’ its application. Though this retreat has been explained on the basis that the repeal could not be ‘immediate’ that is not convincing. In fact, a far greater danger is the NPP’s positing the choice as between the PTA and the Wickremesinghe regime’s flawed Counter Terrorism draft Act (CTA).

As observed in last week’s column spaces, the CTA poses a clear and present danger to the security of the State, not to potential ‘terrorists.’ These concerns aside, it seems that reducing ex-Presidents to ‘Aswesuma’ recipients along with condemning sins of past regimes is President Dissanayake’s rallying call on the election stage. This is the very worry with the NPP’s giddiness with the intoxicating whiff of executive power.

Its singular inability to distinguish the chaff from the wheat, to focus on the essentials rather than on populist excitement is concerning. Notably, there is a general sense of confusion in ruling ranks aggravated by strains between the JVP/President Dissanayake’s urging voters to fill the Parliament with  (‘Malimawa’) candidates and other (more civic conscious) NPP candidates saying that a working majority in the House will suffice.

Needless to say, all this does not bode well as Sri Lanka goes to the polls in a few days to elect a new Parliament.