Learn From Pakistan’s Struggle For Democracy
Jehan Perera
The government’s plan to impeach Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayakeappears to be running into unforeseen problems. The indications are now that the government’s charge sheet against the Chief Justice is not as watertight as the proponents of the impeachment motion had believed. In addition, opposition to the impeachment has come from an unexpected quarter. The four chief priests of the Buddhist Sangha have expressed their displeasure in a written statement. This has been followed by the Bar Association’s call to the government to reconsider the impeachment. Apart from die-hard government supporters there appears to be little or no public support for the impeachment amongst the intelligentsia. Those who are in the government camp, such as a group of lawyers of the rank of President’s Counsels, did not feel it prudent to let their names be attached to a statement they put out in support of the government view.
In these circumstances, the government would be concerned about the loss of popular sympathy and the possible fragmentation of its voter base. It needs another cause that will rally popular support. The strategy it seems to be using to regain lost ground is an appeal to ethnic majority Sinhalese nationalism. The government has shown itself to be sophisticated in offering different sections of the polity what would like to have, so as to keep them quiet on other issues. This may account for the sudden floating of the idea of a 19th Amendment to the constitution that will abolish the scheme of devolution of power contained in the13th Amendment and put in place an alternative structure to ensure a solution to the ethnic problem. The 13th Amendment has always been a controversial piece of legislation, as it deals with an issue on which there is no consensus in the country, which is the ethnic conflict and its political resolution.
So now comes government minister Wimal Weerawansa, a fiery orator known to have close links to PresidentMahinda Rajapaksa who has filed legal action in the courts of law to repeal the 13th Amendment. The government would hope that this will help to reunify its ethnic majority Sinhalese support base. As Minister Weerawansa is not a member of the ruling party but is a member of a coalition party, the government retains the option of distancing itself from this legal action if it runs into serious trouble. The proposed repeal may be rejected by the courts or it can be opposed internationally, especially by India, in a manner that the government deems detrimental to itself. In such a situation the government is likely to claim that the initiative was one that was solely that of the minister in question. However, at the present time, the government gives an impression that it intends to push ahead with its decision that the 13th Amendment needs to go.
