{"id":74996,"date":"2018-02-20T22:50:39","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T04:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=74996"},"modified":"2018-02-20T15:01:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T22:01:02","slug":"how-19a-booby-trapped-sirisena-and-caught-him-unawares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/02\/20\/how-19a-booby-trapped-sirisena-and-caught-him-unawares\/","title":{"rendered":"How 19A Booby Trapped Sirisena and Caught Him Unawares"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

For the second time in two months the president has asked the Supreme Court to interpret the 19A he passed using his power over the UNP and the UPFA. He doesn\u2019t know what he passed! He comes to realise the hard way that his Prime Minister has taken him for a ride. By the time he comes to know about them, he has lost the two thirds and cannot fix it. The president has made himself a fool and painted himself into the naughty corner.<\/p>\n

First Trap \u2013 Five Years<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sirisena was of the view he had a six (6) year term since he was elected with the mandate to govern for six (6) years. But that\u2019s not what 19A stated. He came to know 3 (three) years into his rule that his tenure is only 5 (five) years. That messed up his plans seriously.<\/p>\n

Second Trap \u2013 Prime Minister is Difficult to Remove<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sirisena was fooled again on the removal of the Prime Minister. He assumed 19A didn\u2019t take away the president\u2019s ability to remove the Prime Minister anytime. But he may be wrong; partly or completely. Now he has consulted the Supreme Court again. Ranil and his UNP fooled Sirisena again.<\/p>\n

Sirisena has only 29 years of experience in national politics. Ranil has over 41 years\u2019 experience in national politics. Mahinda has 36 years\u2019 political experience at the national level. Chandrika has only 11 years\u2019 experience at the national level.<\/p>\n

The impact of the last Supreme Court interpretation and the upcoming interpretation have profound impact on Sirisena\u2019s future and that of the nation. The parliament cannot be dissolved until February 16, 2020 but the presidential election must be held by November 8, 2019. In other words, the parliament will outlive the president. The parliament with a clear UNP and TNA combined majority will oversee the next presidential election. What\u2019s worse is, November 2019 will be a budget month when the president depends on parliament to pass the budget. For the record, the president cannot pass the budget. This is when UNP will exert its influence.<\/p>\n

If Sirisena thought surprises hidden in 19A end there, he is wrong. It gets worse!<\/p>\n

Third Trap \u2013 Prime Minister Takes It<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before 19A, the president could change the Prime Minister anytime. It could be done even without notifying the parliament, the public or the Prime Minister as there is no such obligation on the President! It was possible under the law to change the Prime Minister by appointing another but keep the appointment secret. Nothing in the Constitution stopped this approach. For instance, faced with a hostile UNP Cabinet of ministers and a UNP Prime Minister, nothing prevented President Kumaratunga in 2002-2004 to appoint another as Prime Minister replacing Ranil but keep the appointment secret. Why this is important will be evident soon.<\/p>\n

However, this cannot be done after 19A.<\/p>\n

If the president dies in office, the Prime Minister was to assume that office before 19A. If the President had replaced the Prime Minister but kept the matter secret, the new Prime Minister could claim to be the real Prime Minister and succeed to the post of the President. For instance, if President Chandrika died (as a result of the UNP-LTTE CFA in 2002 or otherwise), her secret Prime Ministerial appointment could claim the Prime Minister post and succeed to the post of President. This allowance was kept by the makers of the Constitution for good reasons in a country three leaders died in office and another narrowly escaped!<\/p>\n

Under 19A, any parliamentarian with most support can succeed the President if the post of President becomes suddenly vacant. That means Ranil becomes president if Sirisena ceased to function as President. The previous allowance that provided an indirect safeguard is no more!<\/p>\n

Look at in the context of Ranil. He was nobody until 1993 but suddenly became the Prime Minister thanks to the killings of President Premadasa and Lalith Athulathmudali (the next in line for party leadership in the absence of the incumbent). However, Ranil\u2019s leadership was again challenged for a few months a year later. Gamini Dissanaike was also killed by Tamil terrorists cementing Ranil\u2019s unchallenged leadership within the UNP. Since then no one dared to challenge him. A few patriotic UNP leaders \u2013 General Janaka Perera and General Lucky Algama were also killed by Tamil terrorists. Surely, there is nothing to say Ranil had anything to do with these but Ranil was exceptionally lucky as his superiors and potential superiors fell like flies. If his luck continues, he has a clearly paved path to Presidency after 19A.<\/p>\n

Fourth Trap – Reconciliation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another Constitutional trap laid for Sirisena (yet unknown to him) under 19A is reconciliation. 19A introduced reconciliation as a duty of the president! Having won 85% of minority votes in January 2015, Sirisena was elated when 19A was passed and he didn\u2019t question this change. However, by now Sirisena has lost almost all minority votes. In other words, Sirisena has failed in his duty to ensure reconciliation. This can be converted to Sirisena\u2019s violation of the Constitution spearheaded by minority parties. They all support the UNP in parliamentary elections. On the other hand, if Sirisena upholds reconciliation, he loses Sinhala votes.<\/p>\n

Fifth Trap \u2013 National Government<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another Constitution trap yet unknown to Sirisena is the national government gimmick. As per 19A the two parties elected in 2015 with the largest number of MPs may form a national government. What if Sirisena loses control of the largest SLFP faction in parliament? They can bypass Sirisena\u2019s authority and form a national government with the UNP. A hapless Sirisena can only hope it doesn\u2019t happen. If it happens heading to the November 2018 budget, it will spell disaster for Sirisena. As 2019 is an election year for Sirisena, he will ensure the next budget (in 8 months) has election goodies and sweeteners. But UNP can deny this by forming a majority without Sirisena\u2019s blessing. There is nothing Sirisena can do.<\/p>\n

Sirisena Taken for a Ride<\/strong><\/p>\n

Altogether there are five (5) Constitutional traps UNP laid for President Sirisena in the 19A. Sirisena is only aware of 1 (one) so far. Soon he will come to know another. Even then, there are three (3) more he will not come to know for some time. His own Prime Minister and his own party have undermined him. Sirisena had good PR consultants and political consultants but his legal consultants failed him this time. Ranil copied his uncle\u2019s constitutional expertise to frame Sirisena. JR\u2019s opponents knew what they were getting into but Sirisena is still unaware of the full scale of the trap.<\/p>\n

However, he has one avenue to turn tables on them. That is to punish bond scam, FCID, CIABOC and PRECIFAC identified felons. He has about one year to confine them far away from politics and they will not pose any threat. The rest will be stunned into silence. Has he got the courage and foresight to do so?<\/p>\n

UNP constitutional experts didn\u2019t forget Rajapaksas in 19A. Two term restriction was reintroduced, minimum age to contest for presidency was raised to 30 (preventing Mahinda\u2019s sons from contesting in 2019) and restrictions on foreign citizens to contest parliamentary election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara For the second time in two months the president has asked the Supreme Court to interpret the 19A he passed using his power over the UNP and the UPFA. He doesn\u2019t know what he passed! He comes to realise the hard way that his Prime Minister has taken him for a ride. By […]<\/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-74996","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\/74996","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=74996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}