Hold A Referendum On The 18th Amendment
By R.M.B Senanayake -February 11, 2014 |
R.M.B. Senanayake
I attended a Workshop conducted by the Peoples Action Front for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) on how to restore free and fair elections. Everybody agrees that we do not have free and fair elections and will not have them now or in the future unless we take some civic action to compel the present regime to restore the background for such a condition to prevail. The President replies to his critics that he is an absolute ruler by citing the numerous elections he has held throughout his term of office. Yes he has held elections regularly but so did the Communist Parties that ruled the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. No liberal democrat accepted the Communist States as democracies merely because they held elections and won thumping majorities. In a previous article I pointed out that democracy has disappeared from several Asian countries including Thailand, Bangladesh, and Cambodia etc.
Here in Sri Lanka we saw the demise of democracy with the enactment of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution by President Rajapakse. It repealed the 17th Amendment which had provided for independent Commissions to handle appointments, discipline and dismissals of high officials in the Public Service, the Police and the Judicial Service. Since then the President has enjoyed absolute power in appointments and dismissals to the high posts in all branches of the State, a power which only the feudal kings of old had. So the Rule of Law, the Independence of the Judiciary and the political neutrality of the bureaucracy have disappeared. The Police is not the national Police but the Police of the President and the ruling party. Similarly the Public Service and the Judiciary are no longer the services of the people based on a meritocracy but the handmaids of the President. All these high officials hold office by the grace of the President. The Elections Commission was never appointed at all and the previous Commissioner of Elections complained of depression and has not been seen or heard since he left office.
