{"id":88871,"date":"2019-05-15T16:09:56","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T23:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=88871"},"modified":"2019-05-15T16:09:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T23:09:56","slug":"abolish-the-presidential-system-of-government-friday-forum-why-is-it-the-mother-of-all-evils-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/15\/abolish-the-presidential-system-of-government-friday-forum-why-is-it-the-mother-of-all-evils-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Abolish the presidential system of government: Friday Forum. Why? Is it the mother of all evils? – II"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Rohana R. Wasala<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

(Please bear with me, Readers. In the following sentence from Part I: Most of the observations these reputed intellectuals make through this statement about the failures of governance that facilitated the recent attacks on some mosques and hotels (in Negambo, Colombo and Baticaloa) are generally correct;\u2026.\u201d, the word \u2018mosques\u2019 is a slip of the pen. The word I intended was \u2018churches\u2019. Readers are sure to have understood this from the context. I sincerely regret the error. Thank you)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently\npious, but really insincere proposal<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

FF\u2019s\napparently pious, but really insincere, proposal that We ourselves must\nresolve that this experience should not justify harassment of any community, or\nerosion of peoples\u2019 rights on grounds of national security. We must, for the\npeace and stability of our country, reject ethnic and religious extremism in\nall our diverse communities\u201d implies an uncritical, unpatriotic acceptance of\nthe false picture that obtains in the world at large due to false propaganda\nregarding communal relations in Sri Lanka. It has now become clear that anti-Buddhist\nNGOs,  misguided young \u2018radicals\u2019,\npromoters of the separatist ideology, and the prostituted media are doing what\nthey can do to propagate the lie that Sinhalese Buddhist extremists  are behind the violence. They do not talk\nabout the hundreds of young men and women, obviously the vast majority of them\nSinhalese Buddhists, who queued up near hospitals soon after the blasts to\ndonate blood without being asked. Many of them were turned away later because\nno more blood was needed. Body organ donation is a meritorious act in Buddhism;\nthere is no religious taboo on it. The very nature of the Buddhist teaching\ndoes not allow any extremist ideology to develop that inflicts violence of any\nform on the followers of other religious persuasions. Violence on a targeted\nreligious community for a religious reason is unknown among Sinhalalese\nBuddhists. In the recent past, certain incidents were reported where some\nBuddhists including young monk activists were allegedly involved in violent\nacts. But those stories were mostly fabrications or exaggerations of some minor\nincidents involving a few impatient young activists reacting to acts of\nprovocation from non-Buddhist religious zealots. The root cause of occasional\ncommunal unrest like that has always been the failure of opportunistic\nSinhalese politicians in power in the past as well as now to grasp the nettle\nwhen aggrieved Sinhalese peacefully present their genuine grievances for\nredress. These politicians avoid taking action for fear of displeasing the minorities\nand losing their support at elections. Some racist minority politicians\nalternately align themselves with the winning party at every election and\nmanage to remain kingmakers. The problem caused by this unaddressed anomaly\nfurther compounded by destabilizing outside forces could lead to a worsening of\ntrouble that will be extremely damaging to the Sinhalese themselves this time\nunless they are extra patient and help the security forces to deal with the\nterrorists by desisting from taking the law into their own hands under\nprovocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FF\u2019s delusions about  what the country needs at this critical hour<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These individuals of the FF living in cloud-cuckoo-land\nseem to harbor delusions about what the country needs at this critical\nhour:  We must also understand the\nlessons of history, especially Hitler\u2019s rise to power, and reject absolutely\nthe idea that the need of the hour is a strong, authoritarian and dictatorial\nleader. Leaders of the former government are arguing that they handed over to the\nnew government a secure and peaceful country so that there would be no threats\nto national security. They must be reminded that they created the nightmare of\ndisappearances, abductions and killings that left people in fear of their\npersonal security. No political party should be permitted to exploit this\nhorrific experience to promote a divisive and authoritarian political agenda.\nOur nation\u2019s commitment to parliamentary democracy must be strengthened and not\nundermined, recognizing that some important and positive changes have been made\nin the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all know who they are alluding to, here. They\nidentify  Gotabhaya Rajapaksa with Hitler\nthe Nazi leader who figured in World War II (1939-45). Gotabaya Rajapaksa was\nnot a politician until recently. He was only a former army colonel, a decorated\nsoldier, turned government functionary under his brother the then president.\nEquipped with his previous experience and discipline as a military man, he\nproved himself to be an efficient administrator. The firmness that he exhibited\nin that capacity should not be interpreted as authoritarianism. A well meaning\nBuddhist monk, perhaps a bit overzealous, appealed to him, during a sermon at\nan almsgiving in his house, to assume the role of a Hitler if necessary, to\nlead the country at these desperate times back to normal. He made this\nmetaphorical reference to Hitler because Gotabaya\u2019s name had by then been\nmentioned as a likely candidate at the next presidential election. Those in\nfear of a return of the popular Rajapaksas exploited the monk\u2019s ingenuous use\nof the word \u2018Hitler\u2019 in that context to sling mud at them. A little research\ninto Gota\u2019s past would have helped the FF worthies to become more worthy of the\nsubject of their criticism. As retired academics  they ought to have looked for more firm\nfactual evidence than mere social media gossip before condemning him and the\npre-2015 government by implication. Why can\u2019t these defenders of democracy\nsee  the powerful Hitler clones  much in evidence to the casual observer these\ndays, some with military credentials? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrast between the 2009-15 and 1986-90 periods<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is wrong to say that in the period 2009-2015\nthe people of the country were left \u2018in fear of their personal security\u2019\nbecause of alleged \u2018nightmare disappearances, abductions and killings\u2019. The\ntruth is that, during those few years, the law abiding general public enjoyed\nthe safest, most terror free, most peaceful period they had experienced over\nthe previous quarter century. It was probably the case that although the\nseparatist terrorism that had ravaged the country was eliminated, the\nunderworld that had flourished in parallel with it had yet to be dealt with;\nand destabilizing agents, in the pay of vested interests, had not stopped their\nactivities. A responsible government could not look the other way while these\nelements carried on as usual. There could have been isolated lapses in the\nperformance of their difficult tasks due to stress or personality disorders\nthat had afflicted certain law enforcement officers. The ones detected did not\ngo unpunished. Unauthorized \u2018disappearances, abductions and killings\u2019 were not\npart of the government policy. But that kind of thing was the order of the day\nduring the second JVP uprising in the UNP-ruled 1986-1990 period where some\n60,000 patriotic young men and women of the south, who, true to their\ninternalized Buddhist cultural values, were \nideally free from racism or religious extremism, were slaughtered by the\nsecurity forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country that was handed to Yahapalanaya in\nJanuary 2015 had established a strong national security system and had laid a\nsound foundation for rapid economic growth<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These forgetful retired academics of the FF must\nbe reminded that  the former government\ndid  hand over \u2018to the new government a\nsecure and peaceful country so that there would be no threats to national\nsecurity\u2019. What was more, it was an economically rapidly developing Sri Lanka,\nwhere the average growth rate was between 6-7%, that raised it from a low\nincome to a middle income country, and foreign investments flowed in, and\ntourism increased three-fold. They cannot be unaware of the abysmally poor\nperformance of the current regime in both of these domains (national security\nand economy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one would dispute their observation that \u2018Our\nnation\u2019s commitment to parliamentary democracy must be strengthened and not\nundermined\u2026.\u2019, but not everyone will be able to agree without reservations\n\u2018that some important and positive changes have been made in the last few\nyears\u2019. Be that as it may, their argument that the alleged weaknesses of the\npresidential system that, according to them, have come out in the context of\nthe recent terrorist attacks, strengthens the longstanding demand for its\ndismantling, is spurious, to say the least. They blame the presidential system\nfor creating two centres of power, the president and the prime minister,\nwithout accountability to each other or to the people, a defect that\njeopardizes public security and can cause the kind of destruction of life and\nproperty that we witnessed recently, with its attendant impact on individual\nlivelihoods and the overall economy. But are these negative points inherent\nweaknesses of the presidential system? No, they are not. The drawbacks touched\non are actually not those of the presidential system itself, but the natural\nconsequences of the malfunctioning of the system caused by the faulty alliance\nas much as the equally faulty subsequent discord between the two incompatible\npersonalities that are currently occupying the positions of president and prime\nminister. The FF statement rhetorically asks: \u2018What hope is there for a country\nthat is trapped in the personal ambitions of its leaders?\u2019 No hope. True. But,\nwho  set  that trap and how? The dishonest Yahapalana\nchampions whom the likes of these FF worthies promoted did so through the\naberrant 19th<\/sup> amendment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation has been worsened by an element of\nexternal interference allowed or solicited by one Yahapalana partner with the\nthoughtless acquiescence of the other. There can hardly any conflict of opinion\nwhen the president and the prime minister are from the same political\nparty.  In the past, when they were from\ntwo rival parties, it was natural for disagreements  to arise between the legislative and the\nexecutive branches, but harmfully prolonged disagreements were not possible,\nbecause the president had the prerogative of dissolving parliament after the\nlapse of one year following the swearing in of a government. The prime minister\ncould rule without consulting the president, but he or she could not do this\nfor an  indefinitely long period of time\nbecause of the above presidential power. On the other hand the president would\nnot interfere with a well performing government, for fear of public opprobrium.\n So, the present sort of disastrous\nimpasse between the president and the prime minister was not possible before\n19A was promulgated. Thus it is not the presidential system itself that is to\nblame for allowing the Islamic terror strike to happen despite prior warnings\nfrom local and foreign intelligence sources, but the whittling away of the\npresidential powers through 19A assisted by the specific behavior of the\nsquabbling duo at the helm, while the country is burning. The existential truth\nis that what is still saving the day for the nation at this most critical\nmoment is this much maligned executive presidential system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-elitist common people\u2019s opinion about FF\nintellectuals\u2019 credibility<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\ncould determine how much credibility to attach to FF\u2019s purported love for\njustice for their own beleaguered fellow citizens, if one cares to recall the\ngeneral trend of their previous statements or press releases. Let\u2019s go back two\nyears, for an example: The Friday Forum article\/statement\/public appeal\npublished in the Colombo Telegraph of August 23, 2017 under the title \u2018New\nConstitution A Must: Friday Forum\u2019, jointly written by one Priyantha Gamage and\nBishop Duleep de Chickera, embodied a similarly insistent demand for a new\nconstitution, which is synonymous with the abolition of the presidential system\nof government. It drew the following comment from a reader who signed \u2018Pandu\u2019,\namong many other negative ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who\nin, all heaven\u2019s name, is \u2018Priyantha Gamage\u2019?? Never heard of the chap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are\nanonymous characters also linking themselves to the FF? Seems to be a \u2018has\nbeens\u2019 group which appears to do nothing else but go around issuing statements\nin the vain belief that someone listening to them!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nmuch nastier remark on the FF in the same context was by a person writing under\nthe penname \u2018Estate Labourer\u2019: You have about as much brains as an African\nDung Beetle!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt sorry\nfor the distinguished signatories of that 2017 August write-up, though I did\nnot find anything in the contents of the article that would justify a rejection\nof those sentiments (expressed in the two reader comments quoted). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central\nargument of FF\u2019s 2017 public \u2018petition\u2019 as I saw it then was that the \u2018verdict\u2019\ngiven at the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2015 was a mandate for\na new constitution designed to remedy the alleged undemocratic trends that had\nset in with the promulgation of the existing presidential constitution in 1978.\nThe article charged that  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime some political parties and\nprominent Buddhist clergy have publicly taken the position that a new\nconstitution is unnecessary. It is extremely disheartening  that these groups seek to override the will of the people.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Who represents\nthe \u2018will of the people\u2019 more authentically, the FF pundits or the Buddhist\nmonks?) The political parties of the Joint Opposition, and those members of the\n\u2018prominent Buddhist clergy\u2019 are not seeking to \u2018override the will of the\npeople\u2019; they represent the true will of the people. Their activism has taken\nsome of them to jail. Aliens in their own motherland like FF members will not\nunderstand the true situation; they are willfully blind to the truth. No one\ncan cure that kind of blindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The writers,\non behalf of the FF, urged the prime minister and members of the Steering\nCommittee<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to ensure that the draft constitutional proposals are\nput before the Constitutional Assembly within the next three months at least,\nand are also made available to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, nothing that the FF demanded has been done. The Joint Opposition\nhas seen to that. They succeeded in getting the ill conceived constitution\nmaking process postponed indefinitely. The Yahapalanaya regime has no clear\nlegitimacy to bring in such changes at the end of its ruinous rule. Few\nordinary Sri Lankans believe today that the regime change of 2015 was what it\nwas purported to be (the democratic ouster of an alleged kleptocracy and the\nushering in of good governance). The corruption allegations they raised against\nthe previous rulers have been revealed to be false. At the same time, the UNP\nitself is facing serious allegations of corruption including the repeated\nCentral Bank robberies of 2015 and 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sorry for Professor Fonseka for having unnecessarily recanted his\nearlier position regarding 18A as allegedly \u2018an unpardonable act of political\nimmorality\u2019, and for adding his \u2018failing voice to the Friday Forum\u2019s demand for\ndismantling the presidential system of governance forthwith\u2019.  Actually, FF\u2019s call for the abolition of the\npresidential system at this hour of national crisis and potential national\ncalamity could be counted an act of political immorality. The plain truth is\nthat it is the presidential system that enables beleaguered Sri Lankans to\nmaintain their hold on undisputed and undivided sovereignty over the whole of\ntheir island homeland. The due exercise of the sovereign power of the people\nhas enabled the government to meet the \nIslamic terror that recently struck the country out of the blue, as it\nwere, with might and main. This is despite the fact that the powers of the\npresident have already been substantially weakened by the 19A, in addition to\nhaving been undermined in other ways as well. Imagine how chaotic, and\nungovernable the situation today would be if there were no executive president\nat the centre to mobilize the security forces across the country without having\nto coordinate with nine provincial governments following different or even\nconflicting agendas (which will definitely result from the intended passage of\nthe proposed new federalist constitution).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FF\u2019s\napparent mission<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has long been clear to people who genuinely care for Sri Lanka that\nthe Friday Forum members are trying to promote the 2015 regime change agenda,\nwhich has completely reversed the hard won achievements of the 2009 victory\nover Tamil separatist terrorism. Their statements are addressed to the coterie\nbehind that agenda, perhaps for the sake of moral support, not to the ordinary\npeople of the country that they are visiting frustration on in the process\nunbeknown to them, who hardly have heard about them or their \u2018activism\u2019 on\ntheir behalf. One gets the impression that they always look askance at those\nwho stand up for the tolerant accommodating Sinhalese Buddhist cultural\nfoundation of the country, that has made it possible for diverse minorities to\nlive in peace and harmony with the majority over the centuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\nad hoc proposal to be considered for a way out of the current crisis and\nnational emergency, which is marking a turning point in our 2500 year history<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\nif the executive presidential system must be abolished for reasons still to be\ndefined, it should not be abolished by the incumbent parliament because it has\nneither the lawfulness nor the moral right to do so.) The best way to put a\ndecisive end to the prevailing dangerous state of anarchy is to dissolve\nparliament and go for elections. A less desirable alternative would be to form\na temporary caretaker government \nstrictly without foreign involvement on a non-party basis, as an\nemergency measure, with representatives from the opposition necessarily\nincluded in it, for as short a specified period of time as possible for restoring\nnational security, containing Islamic terrorism at least temporarily (until it\nis addressed in the future with the active participation of the two million\nstrong traditional Sri Lankan Muslim community), and bringing back normalcy to\nthe routine life of the civilian population. These will be ancillary to the\nexpress purpose for which such a caretaker government will be needed: the  holding of free and fair elections. It will\nbe absolutely necessary to make sure that it will not be an interim government set\nup with the involvement of foreign meddlers designed to drive the country into\ndeeper crisis. The pending controversial legislations must be put on hold for\nnow, which might be reviewed, revised or altogether abandoned by the incoming\nadministration after a future election. It will give the people some respite\nbefore fresh presidential and parliamentary elections are held when they are\ndue according to the existing constitution; the elections could even be\nadvanced in view of the urgency of the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluded<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala (Please bear with me, Readers. In the following sentence from Part I: Most of the observations these reputed intellectuals make through this statement about the failures of governance that facilitated the recent attacks on some mosques and hotels (in Negambo, Colombo and Baticaloa) are generally correct;\u2026.\u201d, the word \u2018mosques\u2019 is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88871","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=88871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}