Promises, promises, promises
Posted on January 20th, 2010

S. L. Gunasekera

Excerpts from the book ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Fonseka Vs Rajapaksa The issues before usƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

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.

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 FonsekaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢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 ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”promisesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ 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 ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-to abolish the Executive PresidencyƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, 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 ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”purchaseƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ 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 ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”merchandiseƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢?

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 ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-many ask how I am going to change the Constitution today. I will certainly do this in the way I won the war.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

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.

FonsekaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s sole observation was that ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-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.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ 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 ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-not be a ceremonial PresidentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ but ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-will have powers as President according to the agreement which I have got intoƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ 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 ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”monitoringƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ 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?

One Response to “Promises, promises, promises”

  1. hela puwath Says:

    S.L. forgot what one observer called Fonseka’s “mother of all promisses” : 10-15 perches of land to every new born child in Sri Lanka.

    When experts say Sri Lanka has a literary rate of over 90 percent, did they count the “die-hard-party-supporting” fools as well?

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