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by Lucien Rajakarunanayake

What is this sudden "beri beri" or "mata beri" syndrome that has come over Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe? For nearly two years he was emphasizing that the people had given him and the UNP a special mandate to usher in peace and settle the ethnic crisis. This mandate, both he and his supporters said, was greater than the similar mandate given to the President in the General and Presidential Elections of 1994, the many provincial and local government elections held thereafter, and in her re-election as President for a second term in December 1999.

In that event is the Prime Minister not abandoning the responsibilities of the mandate he was so proud of, by refusing to play any role in the peace process, only or mainly, because the President has taken over the Ministry of Defence? One does not recall seeing anything in the UNP manifesto of December 2001, about the UNP of necessity having the portfolio of Defence, for it to usher in peace.

The truth is that the UNP or UNF did not get such an overwhelming mandate for peace as it claims it did.

In fact the opposition parties obtained a larger number of votes, but by a quirk of the prevailing system of proportional representation, with bonus seats et al, it was able to get a number of seats just sufficient to form a coalition with others. If the UNP received an overwhelming mandate for peace, as so often claimed, it should have obtained a clear working majority in Parliament by itself or even better, two-thirds of the seats in Parliament.

This did not happen. The reality was that the UNP led by Wickremesinghe was able to tinker a shaky coalition government with the support of the SLMC, the CWC and the UCPF of Chandrasekeran, and the help of the TNA from the wings.

However, even in such a situation, as it was clear that Mr. Wickremesinghe had control of a sufficient majority in Parliament as to form a government, the President called upon him to do so with the least delay, swore in a Cabinet of his nominees, and also decided to temporarily ignore the provision of the Constitution that places Defence and the armed forces directly under the President, and agreed to swear in a Defence Minister too from the UNP.

Quite apart from the steadily deteriorating situation regarding defence that has taken place since then, especially from the time of the Ceasefire Agreement, what has happened now is that the President has taken back the portfolio of defence, which should have been hers by right, after receiving an opinion on the subject from the Supreme Court. In this context what Mr. Wickremesinghe is asking for him to be back in the peace process is that the President directly violates the provisions of the constitution, notwithstanding the opinion of the Supreme Court, too. It is indeed a unique situation, where a Prime Minister of a government wants the President of the State to act in violation of the Constitution of the State, which the same Prime Minister has sworn to uphold and upon which all law is based. Surely the search for peace cannot be based on such illegality.

The fact that things are not so simple is shown by the editorial of the November 5, 2003 issue of the "Tamil Guardian" published in the UK, considered the official organ of the LTTE. It makes strong criticism of Wickremesinghe for not heeding its repeated advice, and taking steps to at least "clip the wings" and reduce the powers of President Kumaratunga. It accuses him of ignoring their advice and going ahead with a policy of co-habitation.

In a way the "Tamil Guardian" is unfair in leveling such a charge against Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. It is no secret, with the Cabinet spokesmen and the pro-UNP media crowing about it, that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was brought specifically to clip the wings of the President. It was only the Supreme Court turning down certain provisions of that ill-drafted amendment that saw it abandoned by its own initiators.

As for the Tamil Guardian's accusation of the Prime Minister carrying out a policy of cohabitation, one can only say that this policy was largely one of ignoring the existence of the President and the PA that is the largest party in opposition, in all matters regarding the peace process, as well as other matters too.

It would be interesting to know how often the Prime Minister consulted with the President in the past 22 months, specifically with regard to the peace process in which defence and the role of the armed services of which she remains head, remain a key area of interest, and what steps he took to draw the President into the peace process. Therefore, he cannot be accused of having reached this pass due to a policy of cohabitation, either.

What the Prime Minister did instead of carrying on a policy of genuine cohabitation, was to emphasize on his building of a so-called international safety net for the peace process.

By itself it was not a bad move, but lacked in substance with the absence of the President's own involvement in it. That is why the "Tamil Guardian" says of the present developments that: "The LTTE is maintaining a studied silence at present, but most actors are alarmed. The United States, European Union, India and Japan have all expressed their concern although this can be of little comfort to Mr. Wickremesinghe, as they also acknowledge that President Kumaratunga is acting within her constitutional powers." Having admitted that the President's timing of her moves "was impeccable" the Tamil Guardian also states that "Wickremesinghe's air of nonchalance [following the moves by the President] was at curious odds with the turmoil in the island, which contrary to his assertion...cannot be dismissed as the routine 'ups and downs' of Sri Lanka's politics."

Copyright: NewsWatch

(To be continued)

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