Two Years Of Good Governance – Dilemmas & Disillusion
By Arun Kumaresan –January 13, 2017
Arun Kumaresan – Air Vice Marshal (Ret’d)
Is sabotaging the rainbow revolution, the solution?
President and Prime Minster and the nation celebrated the second anniversary of the establishment of the change that was popularly known as Yahapalana regime on January 8th.. It is now in the cross roads with disappointments and mounting criticisms. The once vocal supporters and the opponents (obviously with vested interests) allege; Lack of leadership and direction, Mixed and confusing signals emanating from the members of the unity government, Lack or stalled process of action against corruption, Corrupt entities being protected by the Cabinet ministers or appointed to important positions and more importantly alleged corrupt dealings by the members of the Yahapalana government.
The above dissatisfaction both by the genuine well wishers of a democratic system of governance and the pseudo chest beaters needs serious attention. The governance of the nation is a prerogative of the elected government and they remain the political masters during the life of the Parliament. Hence, any analysis needs to be centered to analyze who our current ruling political masters. The answer to this was given recently by actor turned politician Mr Ranjan Ramanayake and in his words, quote “If they act like President Duterte they will have to push down at least 175 members of Parliament out of the total 225 from flying helicopters”.
Photo via Facebook – Ranjan Ramanayake
For the purpose of this article pushing from the helicopter has no relevance but the numbers mentioned needs a closer look. It is obvious it was not arrived from any empirical data analysis but from the gut judgment from an honorable politician. Hence, such data can be taken as a justifiable bench mark or thumb rule. If we drop (not from the helicopter) the 175, we are left with 50 honorable politicians. Out of this; JVP can claim their entire strength of 6, TNA can claim a vast majority, say 14 and JO too have some of the likes of Dinesh G, GL and Vasudeva likes 5? This makes a total of 25.
This gives only 25 honorable types to the team – the political authority currently steering the Yahapalana government. This is the greatest challenge the MS – RW leadership have to currently work with. For the idealist mind that poses the question; why should those who shouted on the political stage have to work with the corrupt balance, the answer is simple – why we voters voted in such not so honorable people.
But it is not the sole cause for public to be blamed. It was due the political system that we inherited from the 1977 UNP government and the subsequent 1978 constitution. The preferential voting system, allowed the rot to set in among our political scribes. Electoral system was abolished leading a MP not becoming accountable to his electorate. This led to mafia politics, which became the theme to define the landscape who will be elected and be our political masters. The responsibility of this progressive deterioration, both the major parties are guilty of; UNP for the creation of the said constitution and the SLFP enjoying the fruits. Hence, the first dilemma to revert back and bring in a new political culture is to bring in a new constitution that abolishes the preferential voting system and also much needed other reforms to re establish democratic governance in the idles of ‘Yahapalanaya’.
