What is wrong with an Executive Presidency ?
Posted on November 27th, 2014
By Charles.S.Perera
Many seem to want the executive presidency abolished. The man who put in place the executive Presidency writing a whole new Constituency was unable to use the executive powers appropriately. He was in fact manipulated by India to mutilate the very Constitution he fathered by forcing him to introduce into it an amendment unbecoming of a Sri Lankan National Constitution which was prepared by Indians in India without even consulting him.
That mutilation of the Constitution was mainly due to USA , which JR thought was his friend who would stand by him if the necessity arises. But when his armed forces were about to defeat the terrorists rounding them up in Jaffna in June 1983, India trespassed the Sri Lankan air space to drop dry ration to the beleaguered terrorists. At that time when JR was mostly in need of his friend the USA, it abandoned him giving the Indians an upper hand to dictate terms to JR the Executive President of Sri Lanka who succumbed to India by accepting an Indian Peace keeping Force and introducing India’s own 13 Amendment into the Sri Lanka Constitution.
The subsequent Executive Presidents of Sri Lanka were unable to make use of the Executive Presidency in the interest of the country and its people. The President R.Premadasa was a pathetic representation of an Executive President. He armed the terrorists against the Indian Peace Keeping Forces and learnt a bitter lesson by getting himself assassinated by the terrorists he armed. Then came Chandrika Kumaratunga giving hope to a people who had enough of President R.Premadasa.
But Chandrika soon found herself unable to make use of her Presidency let alone the executive powers vested in it. She was utterly lost unable to make sense of what to do with terrorism on the one hand and the tsunami that hit the Island on the other, and the vast amount of donations from donor countries and the gang of NGO parasites that followed the donations.
The Tsunami was an excuse for a host of foreign NGOs with ulterior motives to encamp in the areas occupied by the terrorists, to help the terrorists not so much to develop the areas devastated by the tsunami but to train them into a considerable armed force able to stand up to the Sri Lanka Armed Forces.
Chandrika wanted to come to a political settlement with the terrorists to share the tsunami donations coming from different foreign donor States. The terrorists were trying to make capital of the situation formed an Interim Self Governing Authority to share tsunami Funds directly between the government and them.
In the mean time Chandrika was proposing political packages to the terrorists even suggesting the terrorist leader to take over the North for ten years without any elections ! Prabhakaran who was adamant in the division of the country refused. Chandrika was unable to take a decisions, and Ranil Wickramasinghe the leader of the UNP who she invited to participate in the meetings refused to collaborate with her.
Finally with Rauf Hakeem of the SLMC with his followers who took themselves to be the king makers in Sri Lankan Politics left the government forcing Chandrika Kumaratunga to call for a General Election in 2001. In that election the UNF lead by Ranil Wickramasinghe won the elections and he was made the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
In the parliamentary general election 2001 UNF, led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, won 109 seats and PA was able to obtain only 77 seats. Consequently he was able to form a new UNF government and sworn as the 17th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on 9 December 2001. However Chandrika Kumaratunga still remained the President of the country. This led to a confusing situation where the President and the Prime Minister were from two opposite parties. Although, according to the constitution, both head of state and head of government was the President, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was able to appoint his own cabinet
and he had the actual control over the government. President Chandrika Kumaratunga also chaired cabinet meetings as de facto head, but her influence over decision making was strictly limited.” (wikipedia)
Ranil Wickramasinghe unofficially took over the Executive powers of the President Chandrika Kumaratiunga leaving her in the lurch, to take Eric Solheim as his consort and started his Prime Ministerial carrier to please the terrorists according to the whim and fancy of Solheim. The Executive Power of the PresidentChandrika Kumaratunga was precariously undermined and Solheim got Ranil Wickramasinghe to sign a CFA prepared by Solheim himself, with Prabhakaran handing over areas occupied by the terrorists as terrorist controlled areas making them off limit for the Government Forces or the Police Force.
Chandrika finally utilised her executive powers to take over Several Ministries of the Cqabinet of Ranil Wickramasinghe and dissolved the Parliament.
Few days after LTTE proposed of the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA), President Chandrika Kumaratunga sacked three ministers of the cabinet and took over the ministries using her constitutional powers ending the uneasy coalition between her and the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe while he was out of the country. Addressing the nation she claimed that this decision was taken in the interest of national security.
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna also decided to ally with PA to defeat the Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government which they claimed as a threat to the sovereignty of the country. Consequently President Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolved the parliament on 7 February 2004 which effectively ended Ranil Wickremesinghe’s regime.” ( wikipedia)
That in short was the history of how the Executive Powers of the Presidents of Sri Lanka were misused, and hopelessly denigrated until 2005. Those Presidents were simply unable to use properly and beneficially to the country and the people the executive powers vested in them as Presidents.
Sri Lanka saw a real Executive President in action using his executive powers to the maximum wholly in the interest of the country and its people and never against them, only after the election of Mahinda Rajapakse as the President of Sri Lanka in 2005.
With Executive Powers vested in him the President Rajapakse was able to delegate different tasks to selected persons specialised in the particular subjectss allocated to them. It was with that organised methodology that he was able to eliminate terrorism, while developing the country in every way possible.
Thus the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse provided to the country and its people, security, peace and an unprecedented development within five years after elimination of terrorism, which no president before him could have even dreamt of achieving.
His remarkable ability in governance is proof in the visual development in all sectors such as transport, communication, education, health, agriculture, and the beautification of cities. He is on the other hand most privileged to be blessed with a capable set of brothers on whom he could place his complete trust. They consist of the Rajapakse family which is constantly attacked by the opposition.
This unprecedented development process initiated by the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse cannot be stopped all of a sudden, as it would be detrimental to the country as a whole, as much remains to be done by the present Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse with his remarkable foresight and organisational ability.
Therefore the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse should be re-elected for a third term in order to complete the work he had commenced and partly completed to the satisfaction of all those who could look objectively at the contribution made by the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse in providing security to the country, peace to the people and development to the country in all respect.
The much talked about corruption has to be taken up as a separate issue as much is involved in it. The development projects with funds received in billions is a great temptation where bribery corruption is concerned
But we cannot overlook the fact that despite numerous reported and unreported incidents of bribery and corruption, the development processes have continued unabated under the present Executive President.
There were large scale of corruption during the previous governments but then there had not been a balancing off in development to counter the massive corruption at the time. It may seem a lame excuse to minimise the vice of corruption. But unfortunately corruption accompanies all systems of governments globally. It needs attention and requires hitherto untried methods to eliminate it, even partially if not wholly.
Therefore to condemn the government of the Executive President Rajapakse for corruption without taking into consideration the massive development undertaken successfully by it is absurd.
The previous governments as pointed out before which had also been corrupt have not left a considerable number of completed development projects to off set corruption under their governments, in contrast to the Government of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
But what is wrong with the Executive Presidency if it has not committed any wrong against the people, but looked after the welfare of the people who are primarily the stakeholders of development ?
Madoluwawe Sobhita apparently the prime mover in the call for the abolition of the Executive Presidency seems not to know much about governing, leave alone Executive Presidency. The executive powers vested in the President in terms of the Constitution of Sri Lanka were getting rusty and crumbling due to having been left unused or used rarely by the previous Presidents since 1978. It was Mahinda Rajapakse that refurbished the instrument when he took over the reins of Presidency and put the executive powers into good use.
Executive Presidency is now being faulted by its opponents who never understood the value of it and how to use it for the benefit of the country and its people. Madoluwewe Sobita, Athureliye Ratana, Omalpe Sobita, Champika Ranawaka and the UNP cohorts are mere noise makers with an axe to grind inviting the Western Countries to interfere into our affairs through their puppets like Ranil Wickramsinghe, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Jehan Perera and Nimalka Fernando and the rest.
Some say that the introduction of the 18th Amendment was deliberate to use the Executive powers against the people and allow the Executive President to overstep democracy taking away the independence of the judiciary and the appointments of various heads of Administrative Services and the Police Force etc.
The 18th Amendment is essential to stop the limitation on the election of a President for two terms.
The two term presidency had been a failure in USA and France. No progressive development of a country could be carried out by limiting the Presidency for two terms. It is more so in developing countries like Sri Lanka. It is for the first time in the history of Independent Sri Lanka that we have an Executive President who carried out so much of development in so little a time.
If we were to oust the present Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse now, to please a band of self seeking individuals to set up their own system, all the progress Sri Lanka has seen under the Present executive President Mahinda Rajapakse will vaporise into thin air taking back Sri Lanka perhaps to what it was in 2005. There can be no doubt about it as with an executive Prime Minister like Ranil Wickramasinghe the Western Countries will make Sri Lanka their play ground like Cuba under Baptista.
After Baptista was removed from Cuba and the country delivered from the American Mafia, USA took revenge by imposing a trade embargo caring less for the people , with the determination of ousting Castro. Fortunately Cuba did not have an intransigent opposition like in Sri Lanka and hence Cuba developed into an Independent country despite American enemy on its door step.
This is the intended desire of the West towards Sri Lanka, making the elimination of terrorism a war crime to take the President who gave his people peace and security, before a Tribunal. That is purely because the executive President of Sri Lanka is not one who would bend his back to please the Western Governments which consider themselves still the masters of developing countries required to exist on their handouts.
With regard to the independence of the Judiciary and making appointments of high ranking officials the solution is in the Special Parliamentary Committees under the 18th Amendment. It is no fault of the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse that the different political parties that were requested to send their representative to the SPC deliberately refused to do so, thus making it impossible for the SPC to function democratically.
Then they also accuse the Executive Presidency for media curb. Sri Lanka is today a developing country just out of a 30 year old suffering under terrorism, with a debilitating democracy constantly interfered into by the Western Democracies to stop the Development of Sri Lanka , least concerned of its Independent Sovereignty.
The Sri Lanka media has still not taken into consideration that it should be people friendly and support the elected government doing a decent peace of work for the welfare of the people. Therefore the government has to some time instruct the press to refrain from giving publicity to certain news items if they can be used by the West for the detriment of the Country. It is a necessary censure of information.
Daily Mirror, Sunday Times, Mawbima, Sunday Leader, Ceylon Today, are some of the miscreants in this respect. The media curb to a cert ain extent is necessary for Sri Lanka today and that should not be considered an abuse of Executive power of the President. The media has also to contribute to the progress and development of Sri Lanka without highlighting certain news items which could be utilised by the west against Sri Lanka.
When mentioning writing an article about Executive Presidency it was mentioned that it would be good to write that there are people in the villages who are poor and earn their living doing odd jobs for others. For these people the Budget does not mean much and their living conditions remain the same what ever is the budget and who ever is its mover. Therefore it would be a useful innovation to require the PCs to have a register of these poor people and give them a small weekly or monthly remuneration to offset their meagre earnings.
Executive Presidency is useful for Sri Lanka which has come out of a ruthless terrorism, to be watchful and stop a recurrence of it, keep away the unfriendly West from disrupting its progressive development, bring the Communities together as a Sri Lankan Nation without allowing fanatism to blind their patriotism, stop corruption at all levels, and allow the continuation of the development processes, to give the people happiness and prosperity.
November 26th, 2014 at 1:58 pm
A more relevant question to ask is why EP is misused?
Look some instances our Dear Leader misused his executive powers. I don’t wish to DISCREDIT anyone’s good name. Just stating FACTS.
1. Endian drug dealers were released
2. Mervin’s son was released a few times
3. ALL Endian illegal fishermen were released
4. KP was pardoned
5. LTTE Pissanayagon was pardoned
6. LTTE Hack-him was appointed justice minister
7. prevents the parliament from SCRAPPING 13 amendment
8. EP’s office costs over 9 billion rupees a year in the current set up
9. Sajiv Vas has been pardoned for the New York slapping incident
10. ALL COPE thiefs in 2007 were pardoned
11. Third most corrupt in 2007 COPE report PBJ has been reappointed treasury chief
12. Made a promise to Monkey Boon to fully implement 13 amendment
13. A MASSIVE cabinet of ministers, deputy ministers and monitoring ministers appointed.
November 26th, 2014 at 2:09 pm
Lorenzo,
You said “People were grateful to him in 2010. He got the HIGHEST EVER vote percentage at ANY general election. That is ENOUGH.”
Yes, indeed the people were grateful to him then.
BUT, that is NOT ENOUGH, because
1. What they did in Wiining the War and Developing the Nation Rapidly was not a mere flash in the pan to be rewarded with support in ONE election and a “Thank you, Goodbye”, but a huge undertaking transcending ANYTHING & EVERYTHING any government has done within our lifetimes.
2. The CONSEQUENCES and PERSONAL LIABILITIES of PROTECTING the nation the Rajapaksa Family INCURRED on our behalf, will CONTINUE through their ENTIRE LIVES because of the Eelamist Diaspora, and the Western Neocolonialists exploiting the issue for their own gain.
So, not only the Rajapakas, but we as a NATION, have incurred a Long Term National Mortgage in exchange for Preserving the Territorial Integrity and Sovereignty of our Nation, the Lives of our People, and gaining the FREEDOM to Rapidly Develop our Economy by allying with whomever we choose (e.g. China).
Part of paying back that Long Term National Mortgage WE INCURRED is to PROTECT and DEFEND our HEROIC LEADERS who led the Patritic Forces towards that LEGITIMATE goal, executing their SWORN DUTY to PROTECT, DEFEND and UPLIFT their NATION and their PEOPLE.
We SHOULD NOT, we MUST NOT, indeed we CANNOT, DODGE that Ethical and Moral DUTY by chanting a litany of overblown often fabricated PRETEXTS to abandon them, and hand them over to the tender mercies of Sri Lanka’s AVOWED ENEMIES!
We should be CONDEMNED to ETERNAL SHAME as CRAVEN COWARDS if we abandon our HEROES!
November 26th, 2014 at 2:23 pm
Ananda,
Who said we will abandon war heroes? NEVER.
But some TOP LTTE terrorists have become CLOSER to MR than ANY war hero!
e.g. KP
e.g. Karuna
e.g. Pillayan
e.g. Ganeson
e.g. Geneva Thurairaja
And guess who told Blake about “STF” involved in killing 5 your Tamil tigers in Trinco? Please find the WikiLeaks article.
And guess who IMPRISONED the soldiers involved?
Guess how LTTE (=TNA) became chief ministers in the north?
Who allows Kasippu Joseph to frame our heroes on genocide and BS allegations?
Who allows Ananthi Sasitharan to FREELY go around the world and discredit our war heroes?
Who appointed LTTE Hack-him as JUSTICE minister?
Who released 11,000 terrorists to kill more?
Can we continue with this or we need a change?
November 26th, 2014 at 2:45 pm
The article starts with the statement “Many seem to want the executive presidency abolished.”
Well, that “many” includes our current president himself. This has been part of “Mahinda Chintanya”
Another wrong statement is,
quote- But what is wrong with the Executive Presidency if it has not committed any wrong against the people, but looked after the welfare of the people who are primarily the stakeholders of development ? – Unquote
I do not have to repeat. Please refer Lorenzo’s two comments for details.
November 26th, 2014 at 3:34 pm
Lorenzo,
Glad to hear NEVER, but there you go again …. citing pre-texttual excuses to confuse the issue.
November 26th, 2014 at 3:49 pm
Mr. USA,
Have you ever seen one of our Sinhala citizens sent to international court to be hanged ?
Sinhala people will never do it. This is a mythical excuse and this must come to a stop and real errors corrected if you country is to progress not only economically but also ethically and morally. We have become immoral, unethical lot under the current government. Must reverse this quickly. Only our President can do it even now. But he is not doing it thanks to people like you.
November 26th, 2014 at 3:54 pm
India initiated, trained, delivered, funded and protected the Separatist Tamil terrorists in Sri Lanka during Indira Gandhi’s and a part of Rajiv Gandhi’s tenures as PMs of India. They PREVENTED the Sri Lanka armed forces from utterly defeating the LTTE several times before they FORCED Sri Lanka to accept an INVASION Force to PARTITION Sri Lanka in two to create an autonomous state for the Tamil Separatists. To this end, they FORCED the 13th Amendment upon Sri Lanka’s Constitution, and are pushing to achieve that end to this day.
Those actions by India killed over 150,000 innocent citizens of Sri Lanka, caused untold economic losses, delayed the Economic Growth of Sri Lanka that was then held up as a model for Singapore and other Asian nations to emulate, and delayed the progress of Sri Lanka towards a more equitable and vibrant society. Only a few years ago, India was plotting with Western Powers to haul Sri Lanka up on War Crimes charges at the UN, forgetting its own culpability in fomenting that war in Sri Lanka in the FIRST PLACE!
Only the new BJP government of Narendra Modi seems ready to change those flawed policies towards Sri Lanka. We Sri Lankans welcome this change heartily with renewed hope, although we are wary of a regression into the bad old days of the last 30-years of destructive enmity, especially when the Modi government is inevitably ousted from power some time in the future.
Having said these things, We Sri Lankans also look towards India as the fount of our peoples, our cultures and our religions with a great deal of love and kindred feeling. So, we are torn apart internally with two opposing emotions: love arising from kinship and a shared Asokan age, and anger arising from recent betrayal. Since the betrayal is recent and more painful, protecting our nation against a recurrence is paramount in our minds.
Ergo, the advice by many Sri Lankan Patriots here to hold India at an arms length, and never to give India predominant position within Sri Lanka, for India’s policies change with its local political winds. We as a nation cannot afford to be victimized again by India, because that can PERMANENTLY DIVIDE and DESTROY Sri Lanka, so we seek alliances and erect defenses against India.
Unfortunately, our own national history teaches us, beyond all reasonable doubt, that denying India a predominant position in Sri Lanka, is the correct approach to Sri Lanka’s survival.
Finally, I would disagree with you regarding India’s development since Independence.
In fact, despite a debilitating 30-year war, Sri Lanka is way ahead of India in all the accepted indices of social equity and economic progress. In India, caste and religious discrimination is endemic, and this is compunded by Government handouts based not on need alone, but on sicial attributes such as caste that pits its people into compettion against each other soley to garner these monetary benefits. India has failed to educate all of its people irrespective of social class, and is far behind Sri Lanka today. India’s foreign policy has succeeded in inciting wars with ALL of its neighboring countries; something tha Modi is trying to reverse. Corruption and graft is widespread; far more than in Sri Lanka. India is best with multiple internal rebellions and insurgencies. The biggest of them, the Naxalite Communist insurgency, is spread across a wide swathe of India’s land mass, extending from Karnataka in the South-West to Assam and Nagaland in the North-East encompassing about 80% of India’s people. Often, the government rules the cities, towns and the countryside by day, and rules only the city centers at night, leaving the rest to the Naxalite insurgents.
Yes, India with its size, and large population, has a large number of technocrats, engineers, and businessmen who are still a very small minority as a percentage of its population in comparison with many other developing nations, even Sri Lanka. Again, because of its size and national resources, it can launch satellites and space craft, build weaponry of many types, and field nuclear power plants, while its people, on average, languish in abject poverty and social inequity. That is why it is rather ludicrous for India to be offering economic assistance to Sri Lanka, while the average Indian citizen is far worse off compared to the average Sri Lankan citizen. Let us call that Indian assistance to Sri Lanka what it is: “WAR REPARATIONS”.
At the root of India”s failure to uplift its people lies its failure to demolish its evil caste structure, a problem the Lord Buddha himself encountered and preached against 2,500 years ago; its wrong policies implemented to reduce this endemic discrimination; its federal government structure that pits state governments against each other and against the union government, while none of them individually or together can summon the strength to enforce law and order within their territories.
With the federal government structure, the central government continually FAILS to develop and execute NATIONAL PROGRAMS and DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS because of sabotage by regional forces. India is unable, even to enforce international agreements because of opposition and infringement of its legal national authority by regional players. For example, an agreement with Bangladesh to limit and repatriate illegal immigrants failed because of Mamata Banerjee’s opposition. India is unable to pursue a stable foreign policy with Sri Lanka that is in India’s national interest because of sabotage by Tamil Nadu, which colludes with foreign powers (eg. USA) on foreign policy matters that are the preserve of the central government. And so, this flawed nation, bungles on. Narendra Modi hopes to address some of these issues head-on, and I wish him all success in bringing discipline to India’s governance.
November 26th, 2014 at 3:58 pm
Well said, Charles!
An Executive Presidency is ESSENTIAL to PROTECT, DEFEND and DEVELOP Sri Lanka in the years ahead.
Why is what is GOOD for the USA and France, BAD for SRi Lanka that is under far bigger threats to its survival today?
November 26th, 2014 at 4:38 pm
Ananda,
What I said are FACTS.
PLEASE indicate which is NOT a fact. I’m NOT here to sling mud at the president (who saved SL from Tamil terrorism and I will be forever grateful for his 2005 to 2010 term) or anyone else. I ONLY state FACTS and stop.
Am I wrong? This is the issue.
NO ONE, not even MR can survive IF he betrays our war heroes. So have NO fear. Our war heroes are COMPLETELY SAFE more than KP is safe today!
When CBK was screaming STATE TERROR in 1994 some thought she would send army, STF war heroes to HAGUE for alleged war crimes against JVP terrorists. But she didn’t!!
She is the bandit queen but she appointed LAKSHMAN KADIRGAMAR as FM. The BEST we had!!
Look at MR’s FM. He called LTTE Anton Balla YOUR EXCELLENCY! What a FM! His other FMs are MANGALA SAMARAWEERA and ROHITHA BOGOLLAKAMA. Did I forget SAJIN VAAS. Please ask SL expats what they think of CBK’s FM and ALL of MR’s FMs.
This is the MAIN reason for SL bashing by the international community. We lost the plot because our FMs and real FMs ruined it.
November 26th, 2014 at 4:45 pm
Ananda,
In a paddyfield there is a FENCE and a PATHWAY to save the precious crop.
What if this FENCE and the PATHWAY start EATING the paddy? Who can save the precious grain?
Is it not the predicament SL is in?
1. The NPC CM and NPC and EPC Tamil councillors petition the UNHRC against SL and the army!
2. The JUSTICE MINISTER of the govt. petitions the UNHRC and discredit Buddhists and calls for war crimes investigations!
3. The JUSTICE MINISTER called Buddhist monks SAFFRON TERRORISTS!
4. Minister BATHURDEEN settles Muslims in PROTECTED WILPATTU RESERVE!
Will the US, RUSSIAN or French presidents allow this kind of things?
November 26th, 2014 at 5:00 pm
India has no problem with Executive Presidency. The problem is with Mahinda.
November 26th, 2014 at 6:20 pm
Kithsiri,
Endia has NO problem with him.
Who else would release Endian drug dealers while keeping SL drug dealers in jail?
Who else would FULLY implement the Endian imposed 13 amendment?
Who else would open up 4 Endian HCs in SL (Colombo, Hambantota, Kandy, Jaffna)?
Who else would run to Endian kovils before every election?
Who is the SECOND president to speak in the Endian language of Tamil? The first is Kerala Premathsan.
Who held the Endian film festival in SL in 2010?
Who is the latest girlfriend of NR?
Who signed the FTA with Endia?
Who is the ONLY SL leader ever to go to the swearing in ceremony of an Endian PM?
November 26th, 2014 at 10:10 pm
Lorenzo,
Your interminable TIRESOME LISTS are MEANINGLESS because they LUMP SIGNIFICANT items with INSIGNIFICANT issues and do not differentiate between them according to RELATIVE IMPORTANCE. REPEALING the 13A s SIGNIFICANT, but not MOST of the other issues you raise. You are just doing a SNOW JOB on the readers; so LEARN to PRIORITIZE!
Furthermore, it is LUDICROUS for you to say “NEVER” and in the same breath follow it up with a LITANY of overblown BS PRETEXTS to justify abandoning our heroic leaders, and handing them over to the tender mercies of Sri Lanka’s AVOWED ENEMIES!
You are simply being a HYPOCRITE when you do that! SHAME on you!