{"id":43453,"date":"2015-04-27T22:43:30","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T04:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=43453"},"modified":"2015-04-27T15:18:52","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T22:18:52","slug":"defeat-19a-by-bringing-a-motion-to-abolish-executive-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/04\/27\/defeat-19a-by-bringing-a-motion-to-abolish-executive-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"Defeat 19A by Bringing a Motion to Abolish Executive Presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

19A is another Indian imposed constitutional gimmick aimed at empowering Indian origin minorities. It serves the wider Indian hegemonic project of turning part of the island into another Andaman, Nicobar, Wheeler, etc. type island to be used for Indian military purposes.\u00a019A must be defeated.<\/strong> However, merely rallying MPs and the people to defeat 19A alone has not enough traction. Instead the promise made by Sirima (1988), Chandrika (1994), Mahinda (2005) and Maithripala (2015) to abolish executive presidency must be honoured. The SLFP parliamentary group should bring a motion to abolish the executive presidency (EP) altogether.<\/p>\n

The Myth of EP Saving National Security under Current Conditions<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a time when the EP was a pillar of strength for national security. However, it is not so anymore. Today the EP is actually a threat to national security. Under the parliamentary system, any foreign interferer had to buy out at least half the parliament (113 MPs in today\u2019s conditions) to influence national policy. However, today they only need to buy just one person, the president.<\/strong> The parliament and MPs are under the law. As such MPs have some control over their action. The president on the other hand has no such restraint.<\/p>\n

13A is a case in point. If Sri Lanka had a parliamentary system in 1987, 13A would never have been passed. All MPs except Ronny de Mel boycotted the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord which laid the foundation for 13A. India cowed president JR Jayawardane into total submission. He in turn coerced his parliamentarians to support it. MPs were incarcerated in hotels along with their families and threatened to vote for the 13A or else. Without the EP, none of this would have happened.<\/p>\n

CFA is another case. Although the CFA was illegal, the president\u2019s tacit approval kept it going. Had the country a parliamentary system it would not have happened as people would have petitioned to court to abolish it immediately.<\/p>\n

Political Package (1995, 2000) and LLRC Report (2012) are other national security threats initiated by executive presidents. As can be seen the executive presidency is the biggest threat to national security!<\/p>\n

EP Manipulated by Tamil and Muslim Voters<\/strong><\/p>\n

What if the 2015 January election was a parliamentary general election? Then the UNP would not have won anything more than 80 seats with TNA, SLMC and CWC winning a combine of 30 seats giving UPFA 115 seats. Presidential elections are easily manipulated by Tamils and Muslims voting as a block.<\/strong> As a result the executive president once elected will serve Tamil and Muslim kingmakers more than the others and the nation. This was seen after 1988, 1994, 2010 and 2015 presidential elections.<\/p>\n

It is suicidal for the nation and its majority to continue with the EP.<\/p>\n

Under the parliamentary system, Ranil could not have become the Prime Minister. Only the MP with the most parliamentary support would be the Prime Minister. In the current circumstances, Dinesh Gunawardane would be the Prime Minister under the parliamentary system. However, with executive presidency, the executive president can appoint anyone as Prime Minister! That was how DB Wijetunga, DM Jayaratna and Ranil Wickramasinghe became prime ministers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the country was under the parliamentary system (1948 to 1977) national security was better protected. Transparent decisions were made and TNA, CWC and SLMC type parties were not kingmakers. It is no wonder the treacherous EP was the product of Yankee Dickie and his cahoots.<\/p>\n

Abolishing EP Makes Great Political Sense<\/strong><\/p>\n

The real SLFP can turn the tide against Sirisena and the UNP by bringing a motion to abolish EP. Abolishing EP is the most popular and consistent presidential election promise! It is very popular among voters. By taking it up, the Mahinda group can topple the Sirisena-Chandrika-UNP government.<\/p>\n

If a motion to abolish executive presidency is presented in parliament, 14 TNA MPs and 7 JVP MPs will certainly support it which means only 129 MPs from UPFA and UNP need to vote for it. Those who vote against it will be marked by the people and punish them at the forthcoming general election.<\/p>\n

The SLFP proper cannot produce an executive president for another few decades. Sirisena who is working to a UNP agenda is rather a UNP president. His successor will be from the UNP as the SLFP would have been reduced to a name board under Sirisena within another five years. Therefore it is unwise to keep the EP hoping that one day the SLFP can lay its hands on it. The day will not come for a few decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara 19A is another Indian imposed constitutional gimmick aimed at empowering Indian origin minorities. It serves the wider Indian hegemonic project of turning part of the island into another Andaman, Nicobar, Wheeler, etc. type island to be used for Indian military purposes.\u00a019A must be defeated. However, merely rallying MPs and the people to defeat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43453","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=43453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}