20A and the race to the bottom

Monday, 18 May 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

As the dust finally starts to settle on the new 19th Amendment to the Constitution, fresh battle-lines are being drawn around the thorny issue of electoral reforms. If the tumultuous journey of 19A is anything to go by, the coming week will likely give rise to an equally-vociferous clash between ideologues, accompanied with all the usual polemics that typify Sri Lankan politics.

In one corner stands a reinvigorated minority UNP Government seeking the dissolution of Parliament, general elections and – only then – further constitutional reform. Meanwhile, the majority Opposition continues to stand firm on their position that electoral reforms come first, then elections. And between these polar opposites lies an entire spectrum of minority parties, good governance activists, civil society and of course, the rest of Sri Lankan society.

Unsurprisingly, as tension over 20A ratchets up, the JHU was the first to lower the bar of informed discourse in what promises to be a heated race to the bottom. Accusing any party opposing the 20A of being traitors, Provincial Councillor Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe went on to claim that any person calling for the dissolution of Parliament ought to be considered an enemy of the State – a statement that turns the spotlight on the terrible dysfunction eating away at Sri Lanka’s governance structures.

Given that consensus on the ‘when’ of reform is therefore likely to elude our politicians for the time-being, more contentious still will be the question of what shape such reform should take in the first place.

The ability of Parliament to pass legislation hinges on its ability to accurately represent the will of the people as articulated by them through their vote. Reforming the only real process by which the people of Sri Lanka can truly speak through their political representatives therefore amounts to a tinkering with the very fabric of this nation and its own chequered history in the experiment of democracy.

The debate as to what constitutes an effective electoral system is an open-ended one that still rages today in nations which can still loosely be considered bastions of democratic thought, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. One point is clear: the formulation of 20A should not, under any circumstances whatsoever, be carried out in the same rushed and chaotic manner as its predecessor.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then perhaps the road to 20A will veer wide of damnation; however a program of constitutional reform ought not to be an exercise lightly undertaken. As the British Author Dean Inge once joked: “Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.”

It is therefore imperative that Sri Lanka’s political fraternity once again resist the urge to vilify their opponents while claiming that they alone hold the panacea to this nation’s woes. There will always be disagreement as to what course of action ought to be taken. The path out of this political quagmire will only be travelled through tempered, rational and objective discussion. If such a simple concept is too much for our politicians, their vilification will be found not in the mouths of their opponents but in history textbooks.