Let’s have a free and fair election

Editorial-November 29, 2014,

With the presidential election only a few short weeks away, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his campaigners have been first off the blocks and the whole country is awash with propaganda material. Rajapaksa’s smiling face beams at his countrymen and women from lamp posts and cutouts mounted at various strategic places. Before the poll is taken, we will have many more of these and thousands of tons of polluting polythene will have been expended whatever the law on such displays. We can only hope that the opposition’s common candidate, Mr. Maitripala Sirisena, will keep to his promise not to utilize such propaganda material. Now that the battle lines are drawn and it is clear that the contest will be between the incumbent and the opposition-backed challenger, with a few sundry others who will not be taken seriously by the electorate also throwing their hats into the ring, it is essential that a free and fair election is ensured. This country has known such elections with the voters changing both UNP and SLFP governments several times in the past; but these, sadly, have become fewer and far between in our recent contemporary history. No incumbent president has been defeated although Rajapaksa, having abolished the previous two-term limit by the 18th Amendment, is our first president seeking a third term.

No government, past or present, can claim that their hands have been clean of the crime of abusing state resources for electoral purposes. Such abuse has grown exponentially at recent elections and there is little reason for optimism that it will change this time round. We have just seen the passage of the 2015 budget packed with election goodies with the president quoted blithely asserting that "all our budgets are election budgets." Whether there will be delivery or not on all the promises made is an open question. Pensioners have already received bigger cheques although there is yet no clarity on how and when the promise of 12 percent interest from state banks for senior citizens’ savings deposits will be forthcoming. Quite apart from the budget promises the prohibition of `treating’ of voters by candidates is flagrantly broken with the president being the chief offender. We do not know whether the election law comes into play only after nominations are received. If this is the case, it is an incentive for the runners to do now whatever they will not be permitted to do later; but given the way recent elections have been run, there is every possibility that the rules would be broken with impunity.

We repeat what we said last week that there must be a clear statement before the election on whether President Rajapaksa, if re-elected, will take his oaths for his new term immediately thereafter and that term would end six years later. We say this because this is a grey area. The country never had a clear explanation of why President Chandrika Kumaratunga took her oaths twice after re-election. There is speculation on the possibility that Rajapaksa will take his oaths for his new term only after his current term ends two years down the road. If this is the case, it is totally unacceptable. The president is empowered by the constitution to call a premature election and he would presumably do so if he judges that the electoral situation is propitious for his re-election at that particular point of time. If he loses, obviously he must step down right away. There is no question of his claiming that he would do so once his previous term has run out and making such an attempt will surely unleash anarchy on the streets. But if he wins, saying his new term will commence only after the previous term has ended would be a case of buttering his bread on both sides. The people are entitled to know what the actual situation is before the forthcoming election and no Supreme Court opinion on that subject, hidden as happened in the recent referral or otherwise, will be acceptable. Sadly, the credibility of the country’s highest court has from the time of the impeachment of the previous chief justice, been seriously eroded.

President J.R. Jayewardene, in the run-up to the election that brought President Premadasa into office, was famously quoted having publicly said "hondin ho narakin me chandaya dinnana oney." Loosely translated this means that "(we) must win this election by fair means or foul." Unfortunately, this has become a necessity for his presidential successors given their kind of governance record in office. Thankfully, Jayewardene was able to live out his life in this country after his presidency ended and he died of natural causes; so also President D.B. Wijetunga who was not a controversial president who had his high office thrust upon him. Not so President Premadasa who was assassinated during his first term having successfully overcome an impeachment effort. We are certainly glad that candidate Sirisena is already on record that the Rajapaksas will be looked after IF he should win. That, of course, is a big `if’ this yet being early days and his coalition of backers still being cobbled together.

Ideally all candidates would upon nomination solemnly pledge to the nation that they would cooperate to the fullest to ensure that the election is free and fair. They will conform to election and other laws governing the contest. We do not know whether such pledges are of any use or will be honoured; but at least that would be a beginning. State resources, of course, would be largely available to the incumbent. But the opposition candidate would also have recourse to facilities such as the Mayor of Colombo’s official residence which the UNP has previously used as an election center. Compared to the massive resources, both human and material, that will be available to the president, the little the opposition can command through, for example, local bodies in their control, will be a drop in the ocean. The Elections Commissioner has in the past not demonstrated the ability to ensure that the candidates played the game according to the rules. He has complained that the law is inadequate and of the lack of resources to enforce whatever laws that exist. Hopefully he would take heart from the strength of public opinion that must be demonstrated from now on that the voter will not stand for any transgression or jilmaat as former JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe famously said after a previous election. A lot of money is already being splashed and much more would be spent. The people will never know from where it came.