No Saints in Politics 

Since the issue boils down to morality, it is worthwhile to inquire as to what morality is.

by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne

( February 23, 2016, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) A recent statement by Social Empowerment and Welfare Minister S.B.Dissanayake in the Daily News  caught my eye where the celebrated Minister had reportedly said that “there are no saints when it comes to crossing over, breaking political parties and establishing new political parties”.  To quote the Honourable Minister: “  I did it myself, the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa snatched the SLFP in the past, along with late Anura Bandaranaike and Maithripala Senanayake. I also received a position of an’organiser’ at that time”.        An article in a website called Indi.ca puts it bluntly: “Crossovers are total bullshit. In a democracy where people vote for parties, it just makes no sense. You elect a guy from one party, and he starts voting with the other party. It’s like buying an elephant and getting a pile of… bullshit”.

The author is no politician nor has he any foundation in political science.  However, he sees this issue as yet another which cuts through politics by passing the law into the realm of morality.  Camelia Nathaniel, writing in the Sunday Leader opines:  “As the law stands today, there is no legal impediment to members of one party crossing over to a different political party or platform, irrespective of whether such crossovers are morally permissible. However there are some who may argue that political crossovers are morally incorrect as politicians are those elected by the people, and it is therefore a violation of their trust. Since a parliamentarian is elected, by a majority of his constituents, on a particular political ticket or platform; it is logical to suggest that those who had elected him, or at least some of them, might not have voted for him if he was contesting under a different party”.  The learned journalist particularly cites in her article  the famous crossover of the then popular S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in the 1950s.

Another view, published in Malysiakini.com goes: “There are those who oppose crossovers simply because of their unspoken fear of losing power, or that of a change in government. The worst kind are those who had in the past explicitly or implicitly supported previous crossovers when it suited them. But there are also those, among whom many good people, who argue on ground of principle that political crossovers lack moral fibre’.

Since the issue boils down to morality, it is worthwhile to inquire as to what morality is.  According to Immanuel Kant, arguably the most celebrated philosopher on the subject, morality is founded on his Categorical Imperative, which is grounded on the autonomy of the human.  Kant opined that “the autonomy of our wills is a presupposition of any practical point of view recognizable as such by us”. The operative question in this context is, what should I do? This again boils down to the ethical obligations faced by the person making the decision.  The fundamental basis of Kant’s categorical imperative is teleological, or, in other words, grounded on the purpose of the purported action.  Is the crossover for my benefit or for the benefit of the people I represent?  Can I serve my constituents better by crossing over to a political party in power that can implement proactive policies for the people?  Can I be part of that?  Am I self-serving?

Plato surmised that the highest reach of morality and ethical behaviour was human well-being (eudaimonia), which required virtue in the highest form.    However, Plato graduated from this human regime to a metaphysical realm that required leaders to be grounded on knowledge that led to philosophical learning. This might be a bit lofty for most parliamentarians and politicians, although if the concept of morality in this context was linked to the concept of justice, i.e. by the crossover, would a parliamentarian achieve justice for his constituents, Kant’s categorical imperative would arguably be complied with as the teleological element of the purpose of the action would be reached.  Justice is fairness or good conduct.  It is defined in the Business Directory as fairness in protection of rights and punishment of wrongs. Justice is different from law. While all legal systems aim to uphold the ideal of justice through fair and proper administration of the law of the land, it is possible to have unjust laws.

Plato says justice is harmony and doing one’s own job. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that the notion of justice as a virtue began in reference to a trait of individuals, and to some extent remains so, even if today we often conceive the justice of individuals as having some (grounding) reference to social justice.  Social justice in turn is a corollary of good governance. The primary determinant of a State’s successful prevention of harm to citizens is good governance. Evaluating the quality of governance of a democratically elected regime should not only be a preoccupation of the public sector but should also constitute a necessary prerogative of the people being governed. The most fundamental issue in the evaluation process must inevitably be whether the public governance reforms of a given regime could be assessed with performance measurement tools and models.  Traditional modes of evaluation, with which the voter usually goes to the polls in a democratic environment to select her government, are “value for money”, efficiency of service delivery and customer satisfaction. At best, these yardsticks have largely been political and economic abstractions which have prompted some academics and practitioners to consider the subject of governance-evaluation as being immeasurable or too much trouble. The issue is further aggravated by the fact that there is no scientifically approved or accepted model to assess the quality of public governance.

Overall public interest in good governance is now a common feature in the modern State, and is not restricted to the academics and practitioners who bore the burden of evaluating governance in the past.

  

The increasing concern and interest in good governance may be attributed to the public being more educated and aware than before, which is now popularly known as “civic literacy”, coupled with the proliferation of complex issues that have emerged with globalization and an international awareness that has spread to national boundaries. Therefore, an empirical demonstration of good governance has now become a compelling need that could provide the necessary tools for the public to develop their own desired models of governance which are capable of delivering goods that accord with their expectations.  In this respect, while admittedly there are various methodologies developed at the local level to assess the quality of life and there exist global review processes such as the one employed by the World Bank to evaluate the quality of governance in whole countries, there are unfortunately no general indicators that could enable better understanding of whether a given governance is improving, nor has any conclusion been reached as to whether evaluating governance could go towards  improving governance.

Ultimately, the morality of a crossover would depend on, whether in Kant’s and Plato’s view, a person who crosses over does so for better governance or whether that person  is  a mendacious self-serving scum bag who cares not for either morality or justice for the constituents.  Fortunately, the voter would be the ultimate judge.