Save us from democracy

With the elections round the corner, the office of Executive Presidency has come to the fore once again and the issue, as usual is, whether 'Sri Lanka needs the Executive Presidency?' The most potent argument against that office is that, because there is too much 'teeth' in it, it undermines Parliamentary democracy! This assertion however presupposes that Parliamentary democracy is 'the thing' a country should have and any perceived threat to it should therefore be guarded against.

Well, what is democracy? Democracy certainly is not a way of governance but merely a way of electing a Government. It can not ensure good governance but it can prevent totalitarianism in governance. Therefore all what democracy can do is to elect one government after another with no guarantee of good governance and that may well mean one bad government after another. As that laureate of wit, George Bernard Shaw has pointed out "Democracy sanctions one party to govern the country while empowering the other party to prevent the first party from doing so".

Shaw was obviously referring to the intricacies of the multi party democracy in England, the mother of parliamentary democracy, in the 1930's and 1940's. If that was an apt description of functioning democracy in England, after centuries of participatory democratic rule, what could we expect from little Sri Lanka with a '443-year' colonial legacy?

Democracy is expected to manifest peoples' will in governance. But there definitely is a difference between the politically matured and responsible constituency, as what you have in England compared to that of Sri Lanka where peoples' basic economic and social needs dictate politics of the day.

We are a country that toppled a Government when the price of imported rice went up by a mere 25 cts.

At another time, we toppled a government because it resorted to ration imported food supplies during a global food crisis until the local production caught up.

Hence the 'democratic milieu' in Sri Lanka would always offer a platform for those 'champions of democracy' who advocate time serving arguments in the guise of 'people's will'.

Simply put, if democracy is the 'tyranny of the majority' what is the type of Government we could expect in a country where the majority are fools? Hence instead of getting carried away with 'democracy', let us evaluate the whole issue with an open mind.

We have now had democracy for 61 years since our independence.

In 34 of those years, we were mired in a blood letting conflict costing 10,000 lives and billions worth of collateral.

Despite heavy investment in human capital during these years we have failed to build up our economy, social well-being and what was worse was that at the end of year 2005 the country was on the verge of being declared a 'failed state' due to our inability to defend the country's territorial integrity.

There was a great sense of foreboding and despondency among our countrymen during the recent past because what was at stake was the very existence of this country. Nothing worse could possibly have happened to a country and all this happened while we were enjoying 'five star' democracy. During those years of the conflict, some media institutions, ironically in the 'name of democracy', elected to champion the cause of those very forces that threatened democracy.

Even the democratic opposition indulged in a lot of political chicanery drawing 'red herrings' to justify terror and embarrass the democratically elected government of the day, nationally and internationally. Democracy was stretched to its anarchic depth where the nation could not decipher terrorism from democracy.

Our adherence to these democratic principles was so pious that we even defended the rights of criminals who killed and maimed civilian in the name of 'perceived grievances'. Hence democracy very nearly played us into the hands of a tyrant.

When all this was taking place in this country, those powerful international 'champions of democracy', instead of offering hope, strength and empathy pelted us with bricks, bats and allegations, driving us further into the morass. The 'democratic world' showed in no uncertain terms that the term 'democracy' was, but an euphemism for global imperialism.

What people in this country need is a decent living and for that they need wise leadership and political stability in the Government. The office of the President is not totalitarian and it has changed hands four times, democratically, over the past 30 years. If the office of the President has more teeth, that will help in the chewing, ensuring better digestion thereby saving the nation from all that democratic diarrhoea.

Sri Lanka has shown to the world that it is capable of guarding itself against the totalitarian enemy, but it is the democratic friend that is proving to be so subtle.