And now the Swan Song

The professed reasoning behind the candidacy of retired General Sarath Fonseka for the post of the Executive President of this country is so confused that it borders on the farcical. And this comedy has attracted such a motley group of actors that we will not be certain whether the story is fashioned after the “Dads Army”, “Mr. Beans”, the “Carry On” series or the old movie “the Russians are Coming”!

Mere agent

What adds a particular poignancy to the drama the retired General is now embroiled in is the fact that he is not even a serious candidate for the position of the Executive President but a mere agent, mainly of the United National Party which will be his primary vote bank. On his own he has no following to talk of. And it is only because of the peculiar evolution of the UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe, its present leader, that the Opposition is fielding a political neophyte as the Presidential candidate of the Opposition.

According what we are told the main plank of Sarath Fonseka’s campaign is the abolition of the office of the Executive Presidency. Every vote received by him will be an endorsement of that platform. In other words, in the event General Fonseka is elected President, he has no right to exercise any of the powers bestowed on that office.

Will of the people

The will of the people is to abolish that office, not to have a Fonseka Presidency. In obedience to his mandate he must forthwith set about the task of removing from our Constitution all such clauses pertaining to the office of the Executive President.

But what would happen if the General realizes, that considerable as his powers are, that even the President cannot efface the relevant provisions of the Constitution by a mere act of will. According to the Constitution, through which he was elected, we need a minimum of a two third vote in the legislature and perhaps even an endorsement of the people by way of a referendum to effect this change.

It will indeed create a piquant situation where the elected President has no mandate to hold office. His mandate is to abolish it. When sworn in as President the incumbent takes an oath with the clear affirmation “ ...I will to the best of my ability uphold and defend the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.”. Even to amend it, he must follow the Constitution.

A greencard holder

This brings us to another aspect of the Opposition’s Presidential candidate which should be of concern to those who give thought to the deeper aspects of public events. By his own admission Fonseka is a greencard holder of the United States of America. This status as we understand places him in a position of a permanent resident of that country.

Except for a few limitations, a greencard holder well-nigh enjoys all the benefits that the prosperous superpower offers its citizens. Even when traveling to other countries, the greencard often acts as a guarantee of a visa, a privilege most Sri Lankans are rudely denied.

Divided loyalties

We do not envy the General’s good fortune in obtaining access to the benefits that a developed society can offer him and his family. But when a man is aspiring to be the first citizen of a country, however disadvantaged, one is entitled to ask him to show his commitment to that country in no uncertain terms.

In this case, is the General using his privileges as a greencard holder simply for selfish reasons with no loyalty to the United States or is he in the long-term committed to that country with Sri Lanka only a transition point with dazzling career prospects? The Presidency of a country is no ordinary job. The holder of that office cannot even remotely place himself in a position where he could have divided loyalties.

For Ranil Wickremesinghe, a politician of more than three decades now, to fore-go the opportunity to run for the presidency there were compelling reasons.

First among them is the stark reality that the people of this country will not vote for a UNP led by Ranil Wickremesinghe.

If democratic values mean anything to him, this is good enough reason for him to bow to the wish of the electorate, retire and perhaps have a go at writing his memoirs, although such activity is rarely favoured by our politicians.

Another reason for Ranil’s reluctance to take up the challenge is that he does not carry the rank and file of the UNP with him anymore.

Strange as it may sound to the outside world, the United National Party is not a democratic institution in the sense it is generally understood. The apex body of the UNP is its Working Committee.

The leader appoints the Working Committee, which then appoints the leader! Even its finances, including all the funds it receives are cloaked in mystery. When the Party is in power, the membership, intent on a ride on the gravy train, is fairly docile. But with the string of defeats that Ranil’s leadership has resulted in, they are restive if not openly mutinous.

Thirdly, Ranil has nothing new to offer, particularly against an incumbent who has delivered the country from the gravest threat it faced since independence. In approaching the threat from terrorism Ranil’s attitude right along was that the terrorists cannot be vanquished militarily.

In keeping with his ideas he kept negotiating with the LTTE, granting them near equal status with the State of Sri Lanka, with incredible concessions thrown into the package. As he is wont to do, Ranil has an exaggerated opinion of the worlds interest in his welfare, and went on to build what he termed a safety-net against further intrusions and expansions of the LTTE, in the process getting all kinds of international busy-bodies involved in the issue. But when it came to the crunch it was proved that all that was totally unnecessary and all it took was a determined military push.

Unremitting implementer

Ranil is of course human and is allowed to repeatedly misread a given situation. But we are entitled to expect a certain consistency in his approach to a large issue from a national leader.

Having declared from every forum that he stands for a negotiated settlement with the LTTE, why has Ranil now wholeheartedly endorsed for the Presidency of the country an avowedly hawkish advocate of a military approach? Not only was the retired General an advocate for a military approach but was also an unremitting implementer of such a solution.

Issue of corruption

Can a person whose attitude was so unwelcome yesterday, become totally acceptable today, merely because he is willing to stand for presidency, a challenge Ranil does not wish to take up?

For the sheer want of an issue, Ranil has taken up the issue of corruption. This is not something new in this country. Unfortunately corruption, or the perception thereof, has been prevalent from the time of independence. But what is ironic here is that Ranil is now the accuser.

The short period, when he was Prime Minister, was by all accounts considered the most corruption driven era in our history. He did not take any action against those who became billionaires’ over-night then. Now that he is in the opposition Ranil sees corruption everywhere. But like all his accusations there is no evidence whatsoever to back him up.

Finally the JVP which derives its justification by espousing the philosophy of Karl Marx, the German Philosopher of the 19th Century, seems to have got themselves into a sorry dialectical mess. Its recent policies reflect a bewildering unreality. Now the JVP finds itself in cohorts with the UNP in support of an ex-military man. Wijeweera, leave alone Marx, must be turning violently in his grave.

Anyway the battle lines are now drawn. It is not really a battle between the incumbent President and an apparently befuddled General uttering off the cuff inanities about various constitutional and economic issues.

The real Opposition candidate is a man who cannot ever win a popular endorsement but hopes to gain power at any cost by the use of various proxies. But this coming Presidential Election will surely be his swan song.

PR