{"id":40792,"date":"2015-01-12T01:22:08","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T07:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=40792"},"modified":"2015-01-11T18:18:15","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T01:18:15","slug":"low-prospects-of-ranil-continuing-as-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/01\/12\/low-prospects-of-ranil-continuing-as-prime-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Low prospects of Ranil continuing as prime minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranjit Abeywardena<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The just concluded presidential election was a coup by foreign elements, Its broader similarities to the 1815 ousting of the King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe II by the British are uncanny to the initiated observer; They based their campaign on tarnishing his image of the local \u2018king\u2019 as \u2018cruel\u2019 and corrupt, and just as in that case, they co-opted the local \u2018radala\u2019 and other elements – a hotchpotch of losers in local politics and Buddhist monks who wouldn\u2019t know the country\u2019s Constitution from Ummagga Jatakaya – to execute their plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

The foreign conspiracy to steal political power in Sri Lanka has succeeded -for now -. Things have changed in the 21st century and they will not be ruling us overtly this time. They will run Sri Lanka from behind the screens. The incompetence of the local hotchpotch, however, appears to be making things difficult for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ignorance of the hotchpotch on the constitutional provisions on the executive presidency came to light in the first week of the campaign. After making extravagant promises they realised that abolishing executive presidency is not a job for the president himself, but a function of the parliament, vetted by the public in a referendum.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was ironic that they were contemplating the \u2018dictatorial\u2019 exercise of the powers of the very position they were alleging is dictatorial. But it was not part of the conspiracy, just incompetence.<\/span><\/p>\n

That particular \u2018stuff-up\u2019 arose because the hotchpotch decided to base their campaign on the cry initiated by a monk with no legal knowledge – the Ven Maduluwawe Sobhitha thero – the self-appointed leader of a minor grouping with less than 100 members.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is astounding that none of the figures vying for alternate \u2018leadership\u2019 and good governance had thought it fit to get a legal opinion on Sobhitha\u2019s hair-brained idea to abolish executive presidency in 100 days. The realisation forces them to drop the idea, and the promise was nowhere to be seen in the manifesto.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now it appears they have not learnt from that mishap, and are continuing to operate without any apparent familiarity with the Constitution. More importantly, they seem to lack the sense to seek the opinions of experts on the subject, at least Sarath N. Silva.<\/span><\/p>\n

The continued affliction of the hotchpotch with this failure is apparent in the hurried appointment Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. This latest episode shows the \u2018internalised\u2019 thinking within the group and the scramble for spoils by people who have never managed to win a majority in their own right in a political contest that involved Mahinda Rajapakse.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u2018act\u2019 of appointing Ranil Wickremesinghe only existed in the secret \u2018pact\u2019 signed between Maithripala Sirisena and the UNP, later leaked to the media by Tissa Attnayake. The serious implications of appointing Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister in the heat of the moment to \u2018honour\u2019 a secret pact between Sirisena and the UNP are not immediately visible due to the gap between the act and the resumption of parliament sittings.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hidden hands who stage-managed the ousting of Rajapakse have obviously failed to consider the role of the parliament in the affairs of the executive president, obviously because inconvenient to match that with the campaign slogan of a dictatorial executive presidency\u201d powers. The pact obviously does not make any ultra-vires<\/em> appointment of prime minister legal.<\/span><\/p>\n

As ambitious people tend to do, they begin to believe in their own myths.<\/span><\/p>\n

A casual glance through the Constitution by any of the leaders would have revealed the crystal clear provisions of Chapter 43 (3). It stipulates that The President shall appoint as Prime Minster the Member of Parliament who in his opinions is most likely to command the confidence of Parliament.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The appointment clearly shows Sirisena was unaware of the provision and no one has educated him on it. Had he read t, President Sirisena would not have become confident that Ranil Wickremesinghe is most likely to command the confidence of Parliament\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

How could he be confident\u201d that the SLFP majority in Parliament, by 30 votes, would meekly elevate Ranil Wickremesinghe – a man who couldn\u2019t win an election to save his life – to the prime minister\u2019s chair? Wasn\u2019t President Sirisena aware that the group that is smarting under the ousting of their leader -which they consider is illegitimately done by minority interests – is controlling the parliament? The whole affair, the obvious lack of a logical thinking process and its execution among the new clique is plain stupid.<\/span><\/p>\n

The short-sighted appointment of Ranil Wickremasinghe will make the normal functioning of the current regime impossible because they, in their incompetent governance, have provided the SLFP parliamentary party with the ammunition to shoot them down before they take their first political steps by declaring no confidence on Ranil Wickremesinghe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only way out for President Sirisena would be to dissolve parliament and conduct fresh elections. Now that the true nature of the composition of the \u2018WIN\u2019 has begun to worry the majority Sinhala Buddhist voters in the hinterlands, they are not like to elect UNP members for any reason.<\/span><\/p>\n

In any event, Ranil Wickremesinghe is unlikely to be prime minister, and the 100 day program will be still-born.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fun will begin then.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranjit Abeywardena The just concluded presidential election was a coup by foreign elements, Its broader similarities to the 1815 ousting of the King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe II by the British are uncanny to the initiated observer; They based their campaign on tarnishing his image of the local \u2018king\u2019 as \u2018cruel\u2019 and corrupt, and just as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}