Promises, promises, promises
S. L. Gunasekera
Making promises which they know they cannot honour for the sole
purpose of deceiving the people into voting for them is, regrettably,
part of the stock in trade of the professional politician.
Excerpts from the book
“Fonseka Vs Rajapaksa The issues before us” |
Thus, we found Mrs. Bandaranaike promising to bring rice from the
moon in 1970; Ranasinghe Premadasa promising to give each person who
earned less than a particular amount a sum of Rs. 25,000 from the public
coffers in 1988. J. R. Jayewardene promising to give each citizen eight
lbs of grain a week in 1977, and Chandrika Kumaratunga promising to
reduce the price of bread to Rs. 3.50 a pound in 1994. It need hardly be
said none of these promises were kept. These are but a token sampling of
the type of promises professional politicians have given to the people.
The one time professional soldier of repute General Sarath Fonseka
has now become a professional politician, and in the period of less than
a month since his exit from an honourable field to a dishonourable
field, he has taken to the seamy side of politics, namely the politics
of false promises, like a duck taking to water. Even a cursory glance at
the promises made by him during this period would show that when it
comes to making premises Sarath Fonseka’s name like that of Abou Ben
Adhem leads all the rest.
Thus between November 30, 2009 when he had his first press conference
and December 20, 2009 he has made the following promises:-
i) To abolish the Executive Presidency and initiate action for that
purpose within six months. (Daily Mirror 30.11.09)
ii) To weed out corruption. (Daily Mirror 30.11.09)
iii) To re-establish democracy. (Daily Mirror 30.11.09)
iv) To restore law and order. (Daily Mirror 30.11.09)
v) To implement 17th Amendment no sooner he assumed office. (Daily
Mirror 30.11.09)
vi) To go even beyond the 13th Amendment. (Island 8.12.09)
vii) To do a thorough study of the 13th Amendment. (Daily Mirror
30.11.09)
viii) To increase the salaries of the members of the Armed Forces.
(Sunday Times 6.12.09)
ix) To secure the future of the children and the family members of
the Armed Forces. (Sunday Times 6/12/2009)
x) To ensure gender equality and to increase the percentage of women
engaged in politics from the present five percent to the global standard
of 30 percent (Daily Mirror - 10/12/2009)
xi) To increase the monthly salaries of public servants by Rs. 10,000
each within a month of being elected President. (Island 11/12/2009 and
Daily Mirror - 11/12/2009)
xii) To increase pensions and Samurdhi allowances. (Island 11.12.09)
xiii) To give a monthly allowance of Rs. 2,000 to all senior citizens
over the age of 60 (Daily Mirror - 11/12/2009: Island - 11/12/2009.
Daily Mirror 30.12.09)
xiv) To change the Constitution in the same way he won the war.
(Daily Mirror 11/12/2009)
xv) To institute legislation to protect the safety and security of
Journalists. (Island 16/12/2009)
xvi) To ensure that the media is free to function without being
hounded and killed. (Island 16/12/2009)
xvii) To provide houses for Journalists. (Island 16/12/2009)
xviii) To bring down the cost of living. (Island 21/12/2009)
xix) To redress the grievances of the people. (Island 21/12/2009)
xx) To formulate a scheme for Police Officers to retire after 22
years of service if they so wished. (Island 21/12/2009);
xxi) To meet the wage demands of the estate workers. (Daily Mirror -
24/12/2009)
xxii) To give relief to the Golden Key Depositors. (Daily Mirror -
24/12/2009)
The first and most important matter that necessarily stares one in
the face upon seeing this list of ‘promises’ is that in as much as the
Executive President of this country is not possessed of any legislative
powers and certainly not possessed of the power to amend or change a
comma or full stop in the Constitution, the basic and most fundamental
promise made by Fonseka namely to abolish the Executive Presidency, is
one that he obviously cannot implement even if he is elected as
President. Secondly, Fonseka is not even a party leader and will
therefore not have at his command a parliamentary group to introduce,
support or oppose legislation which he supports or opposes.
Further, even the parties that have sponsored him as a candidate
because all of them are well aware that none of their leaders has a
chance of a snowball in hell of winning the election and for no other
reason, are united only by their thirst of power and their hatred of
Rajapaksa. While they have banded together under the slogan “to abolish
the Executive Presidency”, each of them has vowed to go its own separate
way after the Presidential election.
Thus, at the Parliamentary election one would find the UNP together
with Mano Ganeshan and his party (whatever that may be), the SLMC and
the political IDP Mangala Samaraweera together, and the JVP stoutly
opposing them. What then will the Parliamentary Group be that Fonseka
would command or control.
One must not, however, discount the possibility, having regard to the
trend of politics in our country, of Fonseka being able to ‘purchase’
the support of members of various parties including the UPFA with
portfolios as Rajapaksa did with members of the UNP and the SLMC. Does
Fonseka then propose to have a Jumbo Cabinet full of ‘merchandise’?
Even if Fonseka were to resort of making such purchases it is more
than most improbable that he could garner a two third majority thereby.
Thus, his promise of abolishing the Executive Presidency would remain
what it was, a mere promise; mere hot air.
Judging from the comments made by Fonseka, he has obviously not given
any thought whatsoever to how he is going to accomplish or honour the
promises he has given. Thus, addressing a meeting of the Jathika Sevaka
Sangamaya, the trade union led by the UNP, on December 10, 2009 Fonseka
said “many ask how I am going to change the Constitution today. I will
certainly do this in the way I won the war.”
It has evidently not dawned on Fonseka even by December 10, 2009 that
the war was not won by him but by a combined team effort of all the
Armed Forces together with the support and cooperation of the civilians
and the political will and support given by the President. Be that as it
may it has also not dawned on him that while wars are won with the use
of bullets, explosives and other armaments, constitutions cannot be
legally amended in such manner.
Thus, it is evident that Fonseka has not given any thought to
constitutional reform or how he could achieve it. As regards finding the
money to give a wage increase of Rs. 10,000 per month to every public
servant.
Fonseka’s sole observation was that “only Rs. 113 billion was
required to increase the salaries of public servants and that there
would be no difficulty in raising the salaries if Rs. 170 billion could
be saved by cutting down on waste.” Island of 21/12/2009
Fonseka does not mention how or in what manner he arrived at the
figure of Rs. 170 billion as being the money lost on waste and how or in
what manner he proposes to cut out that waste, particularly if the
Executive Presidency is abolished as promised by him, in which event he
would not have even the power to grant or issue a dog license.
As regards the other promises, apart from the promise to constitute
the Constitutional Council and to implement the 17th Amendment within a
month of election to office, there is not one of them which he would be
capable of honouring whether or not the Executive Presidency is
abolished. Thus Fonseka has glibly made promises without thinking or
explaining how he intends to implement any one or more of them.
Although the abolition of the Executive Presidency is the basis on
which the various parties supporting Fonseka including the JVP and the
UNP are cohabiting and is hence the corner stone of his campaign,
Fonseka made evident the fact that he has no intention of honouring that
promise by saying at a meeting of members of local bodies of the JVP on
December 7 that he will “not be a ceremonial President” but “will have
powers as President according to the agreement which I have got into”
with the Opposition parties - Daily Mirror - 8/12/2009.
It is significant to observe that the agreement that Fonseka said he
has with the opposition parties has not yet been disclosed to the
public. The deceit incumbent upon contesting an election as a candidate
sponsored by several parties with whom he has an agreement without
disclosing such agreement to the people whose votes he seeks appears to
be wholly lost on Fonseka.
After addressing the JVP Unions. Fonseka addressed the UNP Union -
the Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya on December 10, 2009. In the course of that
address he reiterated that he would not be a ceremonial President but
would have some powers to monitor the actions of the Government to
determine whether they are directed towards the betterment of the
people. (Daily Mirror 11.12.2009) Such powers of ‘monitoring’ can only
be executive powers.
The people have still not been apprised exactly what the powers are
that Fonseka claims he will retain. In an event, what is obvious is that
Fonseka has no intention whatever of abolishing the Executive Presidency
even if he has the ability to do so, and that the maximum he intends
doing is to amend the powers of the Presidency to an extent not yet
disclosed to the people.
If Fonseka was serious, sincere or truthful about the promises he
made and did not merely make them for the sake of winning applause or
support, he must have had a belief that they were promises which could
be honoured.
If Fonseka had such a belief, it must also follow that Sri Lanka has
an extremely strong economy even after the ravages of the war, and that
having regard to such strength of the economy the promises he made were
capable of being honoured. What bigger compliment could anybody pay to
the handling of the economy by Rajapaksa?
|