Abdicating power to a political reject

M M Zuhair PC

Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe has said in an exclusive interview to a weekend newspaper that if the opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka wins he-Wickremesinghe- would be the next Sri Lanka’s Executive Prime Minister.

People rally round the experienced leader. Picture by Sudath Silva

He has referred to three benefits if Fonseka wins, first establish democracy, second install a parliamentary system of government with a UNP majority, and third, he will be installed as the Executive Prime Minister. Of course the Opposition Leader who is today the country’s most experienced politician in tasting consecutive defeats has used the word “if” very wisely.

Hidden motive

In his first press conference held at JAIC hotel on November 29, Sarath Fonseka announcing ambitiously his candidature for the country’s Presidency also talked of restoring democracy. He appealed to the remnant LTTE cadres to join his campaign to restore democracy in Sri Lanka. What kind of democracy Fonseka had planned to usher in with the thousands of LTTE cadres, without first rehabilitating them, was not explained. That however is another matter.

Fonseka has promised, “if” he wins, to abolish the Executive Presidency, but he is unable to announce to the country that he will appoint Wickremesinghe as the Executive Prime Minister fearing the JVP and also possibly because he too entertains the greater fear of facing his Waterloo on January 26.

The fundamental question that the voters of Sri Lanka are yearning to raise is; what type of democracy is it, to install Ranil Wickremesinghe or for that matter anyone else, through the back door, to the highest and most powerful office of Prime Minister of the Republic of Sri Lanka together with all the executive powers of the President and that too, to a man rejected by the country 20 consecutive times and one who did not want to face the people for the 21st time, knowing well he would be rejected? Is this the type of fraud on democracy that the Opposition is planning to implement?

A fraud on democracy

It was Abraham Lincoln who said, ‘no man is good enough to govern, another man without that other’s consent’. An election in any democracy is all about obtaining the consent of the people to be governed by the elected.

Persons who preach democracy and good governance cannot be heard to promise to commit a fraud on democracy. The exercise of the right of franchise is inviolable and inalienable. Anyone elected through the exercise of the franchise of the people cannot abdicate his office to anyone else, least of all to a public reject.

The greatest fraud that can be perpetrated on the electoral process is to hand over the Government of Sri Lanka to anyone else, worst of all to one, aptly described as a ‘Serial Looser’ by former M.P. S.L. Gunasekara. Meanwhile Fonseka is seeking to beat the Serial Looser with the title ‘Sure Failure’!

The UNP leader has also said, “We have agreed even after the Executive Presidency is abolished the General should head a council that will monitor the anti corruption drive.”

These statements, remain uncontradicted since publication in the Sunday weekly of 20 December 2009. Accordingly, Fonseka will not remain even as a ceremonial President, because Fonseka has agreed according to Ranil Wickremesinghe, to head an anti corruption drive, obviously targeting his bitter enemies.

So, he will not be even a Minister or at least a Member of Parliament.

If Wickremesinghe had told the truth, what is most shocking in this hallucinatory agreement is that Fonseka vanishes from the political scene, like the genie having delivered the Government to a political reject, but keeping himself fully occupied taking revenge on his former bosses. If this is what our leaders are dreaming of, God bless our voters!

When J.R. Jayewardene contested the first ever Presidential Election in 1982, his main battle cry as against Hector Kobbekaduwa, a political novice, was his, JRJ’s, ‘40 year experience in the political field.’ He also raised the question, at most of his rallies, “how can Kobbekaduwa win when the SLFP is breaking up into pieces.”

At the current elections, the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa is contesting with the background of nearly 40 years of political experience and now as the country’s President, winning a war which the whole world thought was unwinnable.

His principal opponent is a political novice, propped up by an ever crumbling opposition.

Going by JRJ’s campaign technique, he would never have nominated a politically inexperienced candidate, definitely not for the country’s Presidency.

The danger is that such persons can trade off not only the Government but also the country as a whole. His impending citizenship of a foreign country, a country the Sri Lankan public perceives as having attempted to give terrorism in Sri Lanka a life line, is now being increasingly seen as a grave threat to the country’s independence and sovereignty.

Private treaties

In the unlikely event of a Fonseka victory, Sri Lanka could also become the vassal state of foreign powers, as it happened in Pakistan with Gen Musharraf ousting the elected PM Nawaz Sheriff and setting up a puppet regime.

Franchise, including the right to elect the country’s President, is the exercise of sovereignty of the people by the people. According to Article 3 of the Constitution, sovereignty includes the powers of government, fundamental rights and the franchise.

Any candidate winning the Presidential Election, having obtained for himself the mandate of the people to exercise the executive power cannot in any manner alienate those powers to anyone else, even with a two thirds majority of Parliament plus the peoples’ consent at a referendum.

Fonseka cannot abdicate his powers to anyone else of his choice.

Any such choice, must be made only by the people at a Presidential Election.

Private treaties of this nature are against public policy and will violate the Constitution. It is the perpetration of a fraud on the people. Even if they be only dreams, those are dangerous dreams.

The writer is a former Member of Parliament and can be reached at [email protected]