Yahapalana hegemony shattered

By C. A. Chandraprema-October 29, 2018, 9:00 pm 

The so called yahapalana government formed after the 8th of January 2015 had to end, and end soon. The yahapalana government was not just a government but a complete yahapalana hegemony over the political system contrary to the very ideals and principles the leaders of the yahapalana set up themselves paid lip service to. After winning the Presidential election and the Parliamentary elections that were held later, the yahapalana partners shared the government and the opposition among themselves with the UNP and the UPFA taking over the government and their comrades in arms the TNA and the JVP which provided the winning margin for President Maithripala Sirisena in January 2015 and took over the parliamentary opposition. The genuine opposition made up of the Joint Opposition was largely left out in the cold with very little time to speak in Parliament.

Thereafter the yahapalana hegemons proceeded to appoint a Constitutional Council made up only of yahapalanites and they stuffed all the independent commissions including the Elections Commission full of yahapalanites. The Judicial Services Commission is the only body that escaped this fate because it was made up of persons already serving in the Courts system. With the Constitutional Council dominated completely by yahapalanites, all those appointed to high posts were also yahapalanites and they went about this with brazen indifference as to how this arrangement looks like from the outside. As soon as the yahapalanites took over the government, they sacked the sitting Chief Justice with just a chit from the Presidential Secretariat and because the Sri Lanka Bar Association was then dominated by yahapalanites they raised not a whimper of protest. This insufferable air of superiority and the presumption that any outrage they may commit is right was what was most difficult to endure.

Even though the main slogan at the Presidential elections of January 2015 was the abolition of the executive presidency, after capturing power, the new President reneged on his pledge and resisted the move to abolish what he said he was going to abolish. The UNP, the JVP and the NGOs that supported the yahapalana project caved in and instead of making the President keep his pledge, began saying dishonestly that the main aim of the 2015 January ‘revolution’ as they called it was not the abolition of the executive presidency but the jailing of the members of the former regime for bribery and corruption. The idea that took over the yahapalana camp at that time was that since ‘their dictator’ had now been replaced by ‘our dictator’, it was quite OK to renege on the promise to abolish the executive presidency. The yahapalanites themselves began misusing the powers of the executive presidency to persecute the members of the previous government.

This is why last Friday’s turn of events tastes so sweet to all those who opposed the horrid government that captured power in January 2015 with the help of foreign powers. The term ‘hoist with your own petard’ has acquired a whole new meaning in Sri Lanka. For the more than three hand a half years, the people of this country heard nothing but talk of arresting or jailing members of the opposition. It was as if a group of professional jailors and executioners had taken over a government.

When things were not moving fast enough for the liking of the government they even created a Special High Court for no other purpose than jailing members of the opposition with the Chief Justice himself being placed in a legal straitjacket by making it mandatory for him to select cases to be heard by the Special High Court only from a list submitted by the Attorney General. Today, the third case being heard before this Special High Court is the case against ‘Ali Roshan’ for selling baby elephants captured from the jungles. By what stretch of the imagination does that qualify as a major financial crime warranting a Special High Court trial at bar? Before the yahapalanites changed the law, the Chief Justice would at his discretion that certain crimes be referred to a Trial at Bar. On top of all this, the law making process in parliament was itself upended with changes to the local government elections law and the provincial councils elections law being made so as to completely change the system of elections to these bodies, though sweeping amendments brought at the Committee stage to Bills that had been presented to parliament for completely different purposes. The local government elections system was changed by bringing Committee stage amendments to a Bill that had been presented to Parliament to correct some technical errors in the elections law. The provincial councils elections law was changed by bringing committee stage amendments to a Bill that has been presented to parliament to increase women’s representation in the PCs.

The result of bringing committee stage amendments to Bills in the manner was that the Bill that was first presented to parliament and examined by the Supreme Court was not in fact the Bill that was finally passed but something totally different. The only reason why laws that were passed in such a manner have the effect of law is because the courts do not have the power to examine the constitutionality or procedural correctness of a law once it has been passed by parliament and signed by the Speaker. The Speaker we have now is not a patch on his predecessors like Chamal Rajapaksa, W. J. M. Lokubandara or Anura Bandaranaike and he is playing along with all the outrages that the government has been committing. The yahapalana opposition (the TNA and the JVP) also has been responsible for playing along with all the outrages committed by this government since it came into power – the most unforgivable of these transgressions was the perversion of the law making process in parliament.

This set up needed to be shaken up. It was shaken up from outside by the people at the last local government elections who defeated the 60-70 year old UNP and SLFP and delivered victory to the newly formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. Now it has been shaken up from within by President Maithripala Sirisena. The yahapalana hegemony has been shattered and like Humpty Dumpy cannot be put back together again. Even if the UNP is able to cobble together a majority in parliament with the help of the TNA which this columnist has no doubt they will be able to do, they will only be able to limp along till the next Presidential and parliamentary elections. The sacking of the yahapalana government is the second big victory that the Joint Opposition has scored this year after the local government election.

A deputy minister in the government Wasantha Senanayake described the yahapalana government as the most ‘moosala’ government that there has ever been in this country since independence and indeed that is true. The presidential jackboot that has been applied to their rear ends is well deserved. One can’t even begin to chronicle all the outrages and idiocies that have been committed by this government in one article. We have not been able to even touch on the economic front and the idiocies and outrages committed in that sphere which has plunged this country into the worst economic crisis since independence. The country needed this shake up. The people needed this shake up. It is also necessary to allow the yahapalanites to continue in power for the rest of their term after cobbling together a majority. With the President having broken up with the UNP government, it will be possible to prevent some of the irreversible damage that the UNP will do such as selling off state-owned assets and signing ill-considered FTAs. The impeachment motion that the UNP has threatened to bring against the President means nothing because the next presidential elections is only a year away.