Not compatibility but commitment counts

Tuesday, 27 November 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The public continues to countdown the days till 7 December, especially since President Maithripala Sirisena during a meeting with the Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA) made it clear that he would under no circumstances reappoint MP Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister. Not only did he categorically refuse to have the United National Party (UNP) Leader as prime minister, he went a step further and stated that a person who filled the slot would have to be “compatible” with him.

This is a worrying stance for several reasons. The first one being that it is the people who vote for parliamentarians and the party with the most number of seats is commonly appointed as prime minister. The sovereignty of the people is enshrined in Parliament. It is not for the President to choose who he wishes would be prime minister based on his preferences but rather to respect the mandate of the people. His unwillingness to do so increases concerns over the stability of Sri Lanka’s democracy.

As President Sirisena acknowledged during the discussion, which ran on for about two hours, the Executive President cannot interfere in Parliament matters. But that has not stopped him for the last month. Even though he did in theory say that he was open to the appointment of another member from the UNP, it is highly unlikely that Wickremesinghe would yield that authority to anyone else, especially given the fact that an election is around the corner. Proposing impractical options is the same as keeping an unchanged mind.

Therefore the stalemate continues and is unlikely to show change before the Supreme Court order is given. It is clear from the attempts by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to widen the number of judges on the bench that they are aware of how important this decision would be. It is effectively the only option they have on the horizon to remove themselves from a Parliament where they clearly do not have the majority.

Even though President Sirisena is clearly committed to ensuring that he has a Prime Minister who is suitable for him, the track record of that politician or others who have joined him to form a purported Cabinet appears not to concern him. In response to questions Sirisena had pointed out that he was making an effort to create a “new beginning” and had acknowledged that if he made selections of non-corrupt politicians there would be no one for him to work with. The political turmoil he has plunged the country into for over a month also seems to have left Sirisena unfazed as he had insisted the upheaval was limited to Parliament and could not be evidenced in other spheres of life.

Clearly MP Mahinda Rajapaksa subscribes to the view that general elections are the best recourse. Issuing a statement just after the President’s meeting, he ruled out the need for presidential polls and pointed out, rather confusingly, that even though he has a majority in Parliament, the House remained a “problem”. He also called on the public to support him as they did during the war, when he won a two-thirds majority in Parliament. But those glory days appear to be over.

These dizzying twists of the truth are not going to fool moderate and well-informed Sri Lankans and the Sirisena-Rajapaksa combo may find it difficult to muster votes beyond their core base to get a dreamed-of two-thirds majority for the latter to return to power.