A sultan in the making

2013-07-15 23:26:00

During the early months of the Arab Spring which saw the toppling of the autocratic regimes of Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, an academic at the George Mason University, Jack Goldston, wrote an analysis in the Foreign Affairs magazine, in which he elucidated why some regimes fell and why some others, equally egregious or far worse than their doomed counterparts, were more resilient.

He described those fallen regimes as 'sultanistic regimes', which are built around the larger-than-life image of the autocratic ruler, a sultan, notwithstanding the nominal existence of a Parliament. Sultanistic regimes emerge when a national leader expands his power beyond his nominal constitutional boundaries, at the expense of independent national institutions such as the judiciary, independent public service, and so forth. One could see some striking similarities in the incumbent regime in Sri Lanka.

Those leaders would retain some elements of democracy such as nominal Parliaments, elections, Judiciary, and so forth., but they rule above those institutions, which are in a traditional sense, meant to serve as bulwarks against the concentration of absolute power by one individual or an institution.

Both Mubarak and Ben Ali had subordinate Parliaments, which were in fact served to rubber stamp the whims and fancies of the autocratic ruler. Again, the local similarities loom large.

Mubarak himself was elected in a sham election, hence his interlocutors could argue for the aura of electoral legitimacy of the despot. And Mubarak groomed his son to be his successor. So did Gaddafi, a lesser sultan. Again, the incumbent regime shares those attributes.

Similarities to incumbent regime                          

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