The minority United National Party (UNP)-led government in Sri Lanka
has been thrown into crisis after being forced to put off the
parliamentary debate over its proposed 19th amendment to the
constitution. Debate was due to take place on Thursday and Friday.
The
postponement was a result of infighting between ruling and opposition
parties and compounded by the Supreme Court’s determination that some
clauses should be referred to a referendum. The amendment has already
been changed several times in a bid to get the backing of parliamentary
opposition parties.
The main proposal was to abolish the executive
presidency and transfer most powers to a prime minister and cabinet
responsible to the parliament. The president would remain as head of the
state, but acting under the advice of the prime minister, and would
retain the post of commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Abolition
of the executive presidency was one of the chief planks of the program
of Maithripala Sirisena who, with the backing of the UNP, ousted Mahinda
Rajapakse in the January presidential election. Sirisena, who had been
part of Rajapakse’s cabinet until the election was called,
hypocritically denounced the former president’s corruption and
dictatorial rule.
The election took on the character of a
regime-change operation backed by the US, which was hostile to
Rajapakse’s close ties with China. Sirisena capitalised on the
widespread public opposition to the previous government’s
anti-democratic methods and attacks on social rights. The proposed
constitutional amendment, however, is not aimed at restoring democracy,
but at fashioning new forms of autocratic rule to impose its austerity
agenda on workers and the poor.
Altogether 19 petitions were
presented to the Supreme Court by different political parties, civil
groups and individuals—most of them opposed to granting more powers to
the prime minister.
Parliamentary speaker Chamal Rajapakse read
the Supreme Court’s opinion to parliament on Thursday. It stated that
the clauses delegating the executive powers of the president to the
prime minister required a two-thirds majority in parliament and a
referendum thus effectively blocking the move. Similar approval was also
needed to appoint a competent authority to monitor state and private
television to prevent violations of the election commissioner’s rules
during an election.
The Supreme Court determination was hailed in
the media as proof that it was now impartial under the new government.
In fact, the court’s opinion simply reflects the fact that sections of
the political establishment want to retain a strong presidency amid a
worsening economic and social crisis.
In a bid to broaden
parliamentary support for the amendment, Sirisena included members of
his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in the UNP-led government. However,
most SLFP parliamentarians are still sitting in the opposition and are
accusing the UNP of seeking to put autocratic powers in the hands of
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The SLFP is in turmoil after
the election—sections of the party continue to support Rajapakse while
others back Sirisena, who retained his membership even though he
defected to the opposition. On Tuesday, SLFP members voted down a
proposal to issue treasury bills amounting to 400 billion rupees ($US3
billion) creating a new crisis for the government.
There is sharp
opposition to the constitutional amendment even among those parties
backing the government. The Sinhala extremist Jathika Hela Urumaya
(JHU), which is part of the ruling coalition, filed a petition in the
Supreme Court against the constitutional changes and accused
Wickremesinghe of seeking to usurp presidential powers.
On
Thursday, Wickremesinghe told the parliament that the government would
change some clauses of the amendment and put it for the vote later this
month. In a bid to head off criticism, he also said the amendment would
not take effect until the next presidential term—some six years away. In
other words, the executive presidency would not end immediately as
promised.
Posturing as a champion of democracy, the Janatha
Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has vocally backed the proposed amendment. JVP
leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared: “We think the new amendment is
the right choice for democracy. It gives public servants the necessary
legal frame to work independently.”
Likewise, the Tamil National
Alliance (TNA), the main Tamil bourgeois party, has declared that it
views the proposal as a step towards democracy. The TNA is backing the
government hoping for a compromise with the Colombo ruling elites that
would strengthen its position through the devolution of powers at the
provincial level.
Rajapakse, however, is seeking to exploit the
government’s growing political crisis to make a come-back. He has told
the media that some presidential powers, but not all, should be reduced.
He is being promoted by sections of the SLFP and former coalition
partners, including the Sinhala chauvinist parties—the National Freedom
Front and Mahajana Eksath Peramuna as well as the opportunist Lanka Sama
Samaja Party and the Stalinist Communist Party.
Rajapakse is operating from a leading Buddhist temple in Colombo and organising meetings at temples. The Sunday Times
reported he was planning a march of 5,000 monks that will mobilise
reactionary Sinhala-Buddhist forces to back his bid to return to power.
None
of the parties—those backing or not backing the executive presidential
system—has the slightest concern for democratic rights of working
people. Sirisena’s SLFP and the UNP are notorious for attacks on
democratic rights including the waging of a brutal communal war against
the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
In 1978,
the UNP government of former President J. R. Jayawardene rewrote the
constitution, crowning it with the executive presidential system with
broad autocratic powers. Jayawardene boasted that the “only thing the
president cannot do is to change a man into a woman and vice versa.”
The
1978 constitution was the preparation for implementing pro-market
policies that savagely attacked the living standards of the working
class in order to turn the island into a cheap labour platform.
Jayawardene sacked 100,000 public sector employees to crush a general
strike in order to impose his attacks on jobs and conditions. The UNP
government was responsible for the 1983 island-wide anti-Tamil pogrom
that precipitated the plunge into civil war.
In opposition, every
party—the SLFP and UNP alike—has postured as an opponent of the
executive presidency only to abandon their promises when in office and
further strengthen the presidency. Rajapakse pushed through the 18th
amendment that removed the two-term limit on the presidency and
strengthened his powers to directly appoint top judges and state
officials.
Rajapakse’s autocratic methods of rule were not simply a
personal weakness or a product of his regime’s corruption and nepotism.
Rather his resort to police state methods was above all directed at
suppressing any resistance by workers and the poor to his government’s
attacks on living standards.
The new UNP-led government is preparing to do the same. (WSWS)
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