Fake promise to abolish Executive Presidency

Sumanasiri Liyanage

I stand for the abolition of Executive Presidency and for the replacement of the present Constitution with a more democratic Constitution that is embedded with substantial checks and balances on legislative and executive power and with Constitutional provision for power sharing.

I also believe that, as a first step, the Constitution be interpreted from the prism of the 13th Amendment and the 17th Amendment that are more contemporary than the main body of the Constitution. Unlike politicians, I raised these issues in many fora even between elections not just prior to elections.

My petition to the Supreme Court sometime ago making a request to the Supreme Court that it declares that the non-appointment of the Constitutional Council is unconstitutional was a part of my individual effort to emphasize the necessity of Constitutional change with regard to the unchecked powers of Executive Presidency.

In the forthcoming Presidential election, the UNF-JVP candidate, Sarath Fonseka, has come out with the slogan that he would, IF he wins the election to be held on January 26, 2010, abolish the Executive Presidential system that was introduced by J.R. Jayawardene Government in 1977 first with an amendment to the first Republican Constitution.

Presidential system

Subsequently, the Executive Presidential system was introduced as the principal pillar of the second Republican Constitution. Fonseka’s slogan raises many questions. Is he really serious in making this promise?

Does he understand what he means by the abolition of Executive Presidential system? Do the parties backing him want the Executive Presidential system to be abolished? Or does it make a common platform for uncommon amorphous forces that declare support for Fonseka’s candidacy? These are the main issues I intend to address in this article. I also argue here the promise made by Sarath Fonseka is a fake one and his statements in the past few days prove that he really want to be an Executive President.

I raise those questions for two reasons. Politicians like power; and they seek using power with no restrictions. Executive President was given an enormous power under the second Republican Constitution.

Both Chandrika Bandaranaike and Mahinda Rajapaksa promised prior to the elections that they had contested that they would take steps to abolish the Executive Presidential system. Nonetheless, both refused to do so in their first six year term. I have no reason to believe that Sarath Fonseka, as a politician, will act differently. My second reason is that the Constitution does not provide provisions for the President elect to do so even he wants the Executive Presidential system to be abolished. Hence, anyone who proposes to introduce major changes to the existing Constitution should also propose how he is going to make those changes.

Let me substantiate my argument. In his recent statements, Sarath Fonseka explicitly stated that he would not be ready to be a nominal figurehead President by referring to William Gopallawa.

It is interesting to note that he had made this statement at a meeting organized by the JVP, the party that has consistently stood for the abolition of Executive Presidency. Secondly, SF has already made so many promises with regard to women’s rights, salary increases for Government employees, appointment of commissions to investigate corruption, steps ensuring good governance.

It is not my task here to see the practicality of these proposals and the benefits that would brought in by them. How could he fulfill these promises if he is going to clip his executive wings? The ways in which he speaks and makes promises signifies that he would not give up this powerful position if he would be fortunate enough to grab that.

Since Sarath Fonseka is a candidate of an unknown political party (United Democratic Party), he would be not be bound by a set of policies that are familiar to the people. However, his candidacy is supported by the United National Front and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. Will they impose pressure after the Presidential election on Sarath Fonseka to abolish the Executive Presidency? As I mentioned earlier, the JVP is the only political party in this support group that have always and consistently stood for the abolition of the Executive Presidential system. Even here, two qualifications should be recorded.

UPFA Government

JVP was against the 2000 Constitution draft bill that suggested going back to Cabinet system of Government. Let us assume that JVP was against it for different reasons. JVP represented in the Parliament since 1994.

It was a part of the UPFA Government of 2005. One may raise an issue why JVP did not make an attempt using its Parliament representation or position of the Cabinet in this regard. There were multiple ways of doing it. Batty Weerakoon, a member of the Lanka Samasamaja Party presented an individual member bill to the Parliament in 1977 suggesting the abolition of the Executive Presidency. To my knowledge, the JVP did not make even a limited attempt on this demand in the Parliament.

The record of the UNF on the issue is worse. When we talk about the UNP, the main constituent party of the UNF, it is interesting to note how it evolves from a conventional liberal democratic party to a party that tried hard to introduce East Asian type of democracy in Sri Lanka. Late J.R. Jayawardene was the architect of this change and the second Republican Constitution with Executive Presidential system was the outcome of Jayawardene’s strategy.

Colombo elitist

Although it was mentioned that the main objective of the Executive Presidential system was to create a powerful executive that was free from whim and fancies of Parliament so that neo-liberal development model can be implemented by suppressing resistance emanating from marginalized layers of society, it was also aimed at maintaining the power of the Colombo elitist political class. When the Presidency went to an outsider, the Colombo elitist political class fought hard against the Executive President. It happened during both Premadasa and Rajapaksa regimes. In 1994, Gamini Disanayake and Chandrika Bandaranaike stood for radical and far-reaching changes in Executive Presidential system.

The UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe until mid 2009 stood for Executive Presidential system assuming that Rajapaksa Government would fall with a significant military setback in the North. Ranil Wickremesinghe changed his position suddenly after the Sri Lankan security forces comprehensively defeated the LTTE in May 2009 for two reasons.

He lost all hopes of becoming an Executive President. Secondly, continuous election defeats had shown that the UNP cannot gain any electoral victory as a single party. This was the context in which Mangala Samaraweera who was quite comfortable with Executive President as far as President belongs to Colombo elite political class came to rescue Ranil with a new strategy by opening a space for UNP and JVP to come together against UPFA Government.

Non-party candidate

There is only one slogan that would give an enabling space for JVP to woo its membership to enter an alliance with the UNP.

The old slogan: the abolition of Executive Presidency. JVP added to the equation one more variable, a non-party candidate. So it is quite clear that the parties that support Sarath Fonseka want to have the abolition of Executive Presidency only as a strategic slogan and are not at all serious about it. Hence, the ‘common’ platform is a fake one and Sarath Fonseka himself is gradually destroying it adding more promises to his basket that even all-powerful President may not be able to deliver.

Finally I wish to emphasize that the current Constitution is not suitable in encountering the post-war challenges. Many undemocratic forces have been at work since the introduction of neo-liberal economic policies in 1977 and the commencement of armed conflict in 1983.

The writer teaches political economy at the University of Peradeniya.

Most important task we face today is to reverse these adverse tendencies and not to make room for their further advancement. Constitution of a country is a power map. Now, it is high time to make a significant effort to introduce a Constitution that has more checks and balances and can accommodate the demands of marginalized groups and sections of the Sri Lankan people.