State of representative democracy in Sri Lanka
By Neville Ladduwahetty-April 8, 2016, 7:08 pm
A delegation representing the Joint Opposition in Sri Lanka’s Parliament is reported to have appealed to the Secretary General of the Inter Parliamentary Union in Geneva regarding the state of Representative Democracy in the country. The complaint is that despite having a membership of 52 representatives in Parliament the Joint Opposition is not recognized as the legitimate Opposition. This non-recognition has resulted in the Opposition being led by the Leader of a party with only 16 members in Parliament.
Having failed to resolve this serious assault on Representative Democracy and its impact on the Franchise of the voters, the Joint Opposition has had no option other than to resort to international intervention for redress. The inability to resolve this issue within Parliament reflects how Representative Democracy operates in Sri Lanka.
The reason for the inability to resolve the issue is because of the reported two understandings reached, one between the UNP and the SLFP and other with the UNP and the UPFA coalition (in which the SLFP is the largest constituent party), following the August 17th General Election. The SLFP did not contest the election as an independent recognized political party. Instead, the SLFP, although a registered political party, contested as a constituent member of the UPFA coalition. Consequently, because the SLFP did not have a legal status supporters of the SLFP had to vote for the UPFA coalition.
The outcome of the election was such that the UNP secured 106 seats in Parliament and the UPFA secured 95. Consequently, no single political party had the needed majority of a minimum of 113 to form a Government. However, the Constitution empowers the President as the Head of the Executive, to form the Executive Branch of the Government. To do so, he could have invited any Member of Parliament to be a member of the Cabinet of Ministers, a State Minister or a Deputy Minister. Such additions together with the 106 members of the UNP would have been sufficient to form a Government while those members of the UPFA that did not wish to join the Government or were not invited to join the Executive would have constituted the legitimate Opposition.
Notwithstanding the Constitutional opportunity to set up a clear, legitimate majority Government with an equally legitimate Opposition, the leadership of the UNP and the UPFA/SLFP resorted to a bizarre arrangement bearing the dubious title of "Unity Government"; based on a unity forged only with the UNP and the UPFA/SLFP. The consequence of this "Unity’ arrangement was to compel members of the UPFA/SLFP who opted to be in the Opposition to "support" the Government no matter what their consciences or interests of their voters dictated. Furthermore, this fictitious understanding that the entirety of the UPFA/SLFP is a component of the operating Government means that those of the UPFA/SLFP who are not part of the Government are not recognized as part of the legitimate Opposition. This lack of recognition is what the UPFA that represents the Joint Opposition have brought to the attention of the General Secretary of the Inter Parliamentary Union in Geneva. The inability to resolve this issue internally reflects the poor state of Representative Democracy in Sri Lanka. .
