When Greens feel blue about budget 2006

THE forthcoming budget of the UPFA Government due to be presented in parliament on November 8 is the latest worry for the UNP. Its Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya wrote to the President requesting her to put off the budget till Presidential election is over.

The same request was made by the UNP leader and Presidential candidate when he met the President last Monday.

For the past few weeks UNP speakers at election rallies and its representatives at TV talk shows have said the Government should not present the budget proposals for the next year on November 8.

The main cause for their concern is that the UPFA's Presidential candidate and his spokespersons have said that these budget proposals would show how the pledges of relief for the people made in his polls manifesto 'Mahinda Chintana' would be financed.

There is little doubt that the UNP is running scared at what the budget will offer. On the one hand if the proposals address the pressing needs of the people more than dried sprats, dhal, Anchor and Nespray that are on the UNP's list of priorities, the support that Mahinda Rajapakse already has will increase.

This is certainly a very bad scenario for the UNP's candidate who is fighting what appears to be a very difficult battle even with a very special push from the LTTE.

The other scenario could be even scarier. It is that in the unlikely situation of Ranil Wickremesinghe winning the presidency, he will not be able to push through his real agenda of neo-liberal policies that are not people friendly.

He and the UNP will earn the wrath of the people by attempting cutting off any welfare measures passed in the UPFA's budget 2006. This will affect it adversely in a subsequent general election.

The Presidency

The UNP has only itself to blame for the situation it is placed in today, pleading with its main rival to defer the national budget for fear of the increase in the length of Mahinda Rajapakse's victory run when the race comes to the straights.

The problem lies with the unique executive Presidential system, which Ranil too voted for when rushed through Parliament in 1978.

He and the UNP are now up against the provisions of the same constitution that they foisted on the people without any consultation with them. They are now getting a taste of what they never expected would happen, except to their rivals.

It is well known that the executive Presidential system we have since 1978 is a hotchpotch amalgam of the good and the bad from the constitutions of the UK, France and the USA.

In the extensive powers of the Executive President it goes even beyond the powers the Presidents enjoy in the USA and France.

However, in trying to weld the aspects of the Westminster system with the Executive Presidency, the 1978 constitution has paved the way for a series of unstable governments in the country.

The worry it has about the next budget stems from this separation of the Executive President from the general activities of Parliament.

The US example

Why the UNP has to plead that budget 2006 not be presented in Parliament on November 8, but delayed till after the Presidential election is the direct result of the US system of a nationally elected President being grafted without any serious thought to a constitution that in the main has a Westminster style Parliament.

When the US Presidential election campaign is on, the work of the US Congress the Senate and the House of Representatives goes on uninterrupted.

The US Congress may pass legislation that could favour the pork-barrel politics of the party that is in power, but no one can stop that. If it presents and passes a budget during the election campaign, there are no appeals to stop it.

The UNP must understand that whatever its likes, the Parliament in Sri Lanka is still largely separate from the President and the Presidency. The work of Parliament must go on irrespective of whether there is a Presidential Election campaign or not.

The country must be told what the budgetary proposals of the current Government are, to be either approved or defeated. That is the role of Parliament.

To use any executive fiat by the President, as the UNP is now appealing, to have the budget delayed is disrespect to Parliament both in practice and character.

The UNP must not let whatever fears it may have about the impact of the budget on the Presidential polls, to obstruct the budget being passed in keeping with the calendar of Parliament. To do so a glaring disregard of the sovereignty of the people exercised through elected representatives sitting in parliament.

"Jana Bala" Boomerang

It is the same sovereignty of the people that the UNP was shouting about when it was expected that the next presidential poll would be held in 2006.

Those of the UNP, including Ranil Wickremesinghe who now plead for delay in presenting of budget 2006, must understand that the need for such a plea would not have arisen had the Presidential polls been held in 2006, as the UPFA Government expected to.

The year for the election was decided as 2005 by the Supreme Court, following the fundamental rights petition filed by the Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Thera.

When the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the JHU monk's request that the Presidential Election be held in 2005 and not 2006, Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP had the gumption and insolence to state that the 2005 election was made possible due to the 'Jana Bala Maheyuma" that they staged from Tangalle to Colombo.

It had neither the courage nor the intelligence of Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Thera to seek redress in the courts, instead of staging their own version of the Long March, which was mainly to boost the image of Ranil Wickremesinghe.

In fact it is a moot point to consider whether the UNP and Ranil Wickremesinghe claiming it was the "Jana Bala Meheyuma" that made the Presidential election possible this year, is a slur on the Supreme Court or not, as it implies that the Court was swayed by the pro-UNP crowds.

In any event had the Presidential poll been scheduled for 2006 the Government would have presented a budget in November this year. The UNP had better consider that reality, and stop wringing its hands and pleading that the budget due on schedule is postponed.

There is no need for the Government to be run by a Vote on Account due to the vicissitudes of a Presidential election that the UNP wanted this year.

When the campaign began it called for the budget. Now it wants it deferred. It is a party without principle. What it is facing today is a boomerang of its demand that the Presidential election be held this year. They must surely learn to suffer for their own impatience.