The President and the people vs. the Parliamentarians

President Maithripala Sirisena

By T.E., Kotte

The people are with the President and vice versa. The Parliamentarians on both sides of the aisle are only for themselves. 

This also applies to the minor parties who claim to be minority. Only they appear to believe they represent the minorities. They don’t. They are just minor parties which represent only their respective leader with delusions of grandeur. Presumptuous albeit ignorant of the fact that nobody wants them. The minorities themselves would be better served with responsible chosen representatives of the minorities operating from within the mainstream parties. 

Note above the difference between minorities and the overzealous, self-anointed leaders of minor parties. They are a useless appendage on the political dog that needs docking.

Battle lines are now drawn.

Back to the future. If recent reports of the President’s position on not endorsing the return of his predecessor are accurate, it reinforces the public belief that he will be the president of the country. Not the party. 

The Blue Committee have proclaimed they will endorse their erstwhile master irrespective of the President’s stance. The battle lines are now drawn.

The President has nothing to lose. Only the blackmailers in his own party, who he is well rid of. He will not be short of new, intelligent, honest faces to replace the old guard to rebuild the true blue party of his vision. The bonus? He can deliver on his promise of 25 ministers.

National conundrum

The Greens may believe a split in the Blues would be to their advantage. They may well be mistaken. The undesirable Blues may well flush themselves down the toilet, leaving a cleaner party with room for fresh faces the President can use to mould a new party.

The Greens do not have the benefit of such self-cleansing potential. It is possible that the President has realised this. A calculated risk? Perhaps. But he holds all the cards; and the people. The only cardinal mistake he can make is losing the support of the people. This can happen only if he caves in to a totally dysfunctional, self-serving Parliament.

The national conundrum of governance is diametrically opposite. Parliamentarians whose sole ambition is to rescue themselves; while the people want to get rid of the majority of them. Nobody among the public would miss them.

Amusingly, the renegade Blues who were shell shocked immediately post-election are reassuming their arrogance six months hence, anchored in their confidence in their alleged two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The writer is neither a political activist nor an avid follower of political parties or politics, with only sane economic policy and absolute enforcement of law and order being of interest to the writer. 

Given the fact that the last election result was a de facto rejection of the incumbent and all those holding under him, it is tantamount to a rejection of the erstwhile government in toto!

One wonders what the outcome may have been had the presidential election and the general election been held simultaneously?

Two-thirds majority

Perhaps some legal luminary with constitutional expertise can enlighten this writer and other readers on the validity of the claimed disruptive two-thirds majority of the Blues. Specifically, did they violate the Constitution by enticing crossovers in Parliament by whatever means? What majority would they have had today if not for the crossovers? Could they have legalised crossovers with a two-thirds majority post crossovers? Without a referendum?!

Do the general public have recourse to a fundamental rights class action in the Supreme Court to contest a mala fide two-thirds majority on a motion that rightfully required a referendum; given the patently obvious fact that the remnant hierarchy among the Blues, excluding the President, is totally oblivious to moral values, ethnics and decency that would preclude any group from indulging in a measure which is socially and ethically unacceptable?

But social values are for civil society. Not politicians. The ’78 JR Constitution was worse. The Greens were no better. Ironically, it is their own dog biting them ever since. Does anyone doubt they deserve it?! And all at the expense of the people and the country. All politicians have forgotten the people are the country. The politicians are not.

Way forward?

What does the current political balance sheet look like, and which way forward? That depends entirely on the President. Has he finally lost his patience with the buffoons, sycophants and saboteurs of all hues around him? Judging by his tone and attitude of late it would appear so. Bravo. More of the same, please.

Refreshingly an ever-increasing number of eminent professionals, academics and economists are expressing their views in public. There will be no dearth of good quality replacements available to the president to rebuild his party after he is rid of the refuse around him.

If the President, if his reported stance is accurate, and which the greater majority of the public across the political divide endorse, lays down the gauntlet for the few obstructionists in his own party, the President has nothing to lose. His opponents will lose either way. They deserve to. The country deserves it. The country hopes the President has the resolve to follow through. It is the best opportunity the President has to cleanse and rebuild his party.

It remains to be seen whether his party opponents, with their newly-found vociferousness, have the nerves to play this poker game with a hand that is a figment of their imagination. They will find themselves looking for an escape route for the second time in six months in defence of their erstwhile puppeteer.

The Greens

The Greens as a party do not have the opportunity for the same self-cleansing mechanism, which puts them at a disadvantage at the next election. The disease is deep-rooted and not gone unnoticed by the public. It would be interesting to see whether otherwise potential Green advocates with political ambitions migrate to a new more inclusive Blue pasture. 

Some lessons have to be learned the hard way and the Greens would do well to consider serious and real democratic reform to attract a self-respecting membership. Otherwise they will remain a secondary mainstream party only for the lack of any other viable competition, which may well have been the case had the party split before the defections! 

That is not to say any part of the whole would have been any cleaner. More democratic perhaps; not much else. They have been an Opposition in name only for 20 years. Much more like a well-trodden consolidated pedestal of 20 defeats to elevate the Blues. A country without a vibrant Opposition of whatever colour cannot claim to be a democracy. A lame duck is not an Opposition. How much lamer than 20 plus defeats and no significant win in 20 years can one justify and still claim existence?

The Greens subsist on the benevolence of a President who honoured a promise in return for their support which again was forthcoming because they knew they would be defeated themselves. The sole objective of the majority vote was to defeat the incumbent. The beneficiary is now installed. 

The Greens may have a mandate to remain in the status quo albeit without the arguable majority, at the President’s discretion pending approval for upcoming amendments. This mandate is with the President. Not the Greens. The assumption that they may assume the same majority at a general election maybe misplaced. A clear demonstration of prowess in fiscal management would have perhaps achieved such a result. The general public believes that no such prowess has been demonstrated to date. 

The business community is even more sceptical about the Greens’ capability to deliver among allegations that big businesses are actively financing the return of their well-established contacts to continue where they left off. So, Hobson’s choice at best. 

Perhaps time for a new, truly democratic party with requisite technical competencies to run the country under a benevolent President who will realise soon enough that he is the sole surviving exponent of his original party’s policies. His party as he once knew it has ceased to exist. He maybe momentarily a President without a party. It is imminent that the people will give him a party the people deserve.