Executive Presidency: Blessing or curse?
By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana-December 9, 2018, 8:22 pm
When JRJ, utilising the massive mandate the voters gave him in 1977, created the executive presidency, not everyone was happy but there seemed some sense to his arguments. He wanted to be a powerful president who could use the executive powers to develop the country fast: he wanted the country to leap-frog to the future. It is fair to state that he made some achievements to this end. Had he not got intoxicated with power, may be the presidential system of government would have taken an unshakable foothold in Sri Lanka. However, from JRJ onwards, every elected president followed in his footsteps of being intoxicated with unfettered powers, leading to an outcry for curtailing the powers of the president. Many got elected with the promise of abolishing the executive presidency which was quickly forgotten. Afterall, we cannot expect turkeys to vote for Christmas!
Meanwhile, the UNP leader who realised he could never get elected to that coveted post had other plans. He wanted his nominee elected and the concept of ‘the common candidate’ was born. This was his grand plan to seize absolute power. He wanted to be ‘executive prime minister’ with voluntary transfer of power by his chosen puppet. He made this abundantly clear in an interview he did with a European Tamil TV channel, just before the 2010 presidential election, one of the most disturbing political interviews I have ever watched. When the presenter told him that most Tamils believed he had allowed the LTTE split, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s reply was "I did my best to prevent the split. In fact, the moment I heard Karuna was going to split, I contacted Norway and told them to take action". I was aghast with that reply. After a lengthy discussion when the compere asked him how he would fulfil the undertakings given to Tamil people, his reply was "The day after General Fonseka gets elected, he will transfer all executive powers to me as the prime minister and I will fulfil my undertakings". I do not think voters were made aware of those undertakings.
The conclusion of that interview was the most repulsive. When the interviewer asked whether things could not have been settled sooner Ranil W’s reply was: "Had Mr Jayewardene sat down with Mr Prabhakaran, things could have been settled."
He did not have the courtesy to call his uncle President Jayawardena was seen to give Prabhakaran parity of status. In spite of all this General Fonseka could not win. Had he won, would he have willingly transferred power? I doubt. Considering what ‘timid’ Sirisena did, hard to imagine what ‘iron-man’ Fonseka would have done!
Should an executive Prime Minister replace the executive President?
This is the million-dollar question. Westminster type of Prime Minister, heading a Cabinet government is a totally different entity, but what Ranil wants is a back-door dictatorship.
Those who praised Sirisena to high-heaven are using the most undiplomatic words to describe him now. They maintain that he should continue to show gratitude to Ranil irrespective of what he does. It is only the foreign powers that engineered the regime change, and blind supporters, who are prepared to close their eyes to Ranil’s misdeeds. The President’s fault is that he did not act fast enough. When the bond-scam occurred, he should have demanded the resignation of the minister in charge, which happened to be the Prime Minister. He should not have connived with the UNP to dissolve parliament, in August 2015, to prevent the presentation of the COPE report. Had the COPE report been presented, the second bond-scam would not have occurred. Therefore, both of them are equally guilty of the present economic mess.
The President is also guilty of not having intervened while the UNP was twisting democracy to postpone elections and pass various legislations slaying democratic norms. He had shown his gratitude more than enough. Gratitude does not mean turning a blind-eye to misdeeds. In fact, I look upon the present political situation as ‘democracy in action’. It shows that we need a balanced system than an all-powerful president or a prime minister. Not that it has not happened in other countries, but what our elected representatives did, deserves outright condemnation. The responsibility for that rests largely with the speaker. May be, as he harbours presidential ambitions, Karu Jayasuriya demonstrated what a partial and ineffective speaker he was. He changes his statements at the speed a chameleon changes colour. He did not know how a vote of no-confidence should be passed!
Whether the President exceeded his powers is best left for courts to decide but, unfortunately, what has been referred to the learned judges is not the fundamental question. Whether the dismissal of the Prime Minister was unconstitutional is the fundamental question which will remain unanswered, as it had not been challenged, for no good reason. Perhaps, Ranil preferred ‘Pirith’ to justice!
What can we do?
One option is to go for a full Westminster type of democracy, where the voters elect members to represent electorates and the party with the majority forming a government comprising a cabinet of ministers. The president is not elected by the people but by the parliament. This system has worked well in many countries.
As there are merits of a presidential system, where voters can repose their trust in one individual, the other option is to continue the presidential system with well-defined powers of the president.
The worst option would be to elect a president but have an executive prime minister, where the voter is forced to vote for the ghost of the dictator!
The presidential system has neither been a blessing nor a curse but an evolving institution in our political set-up. We have to make a choice. Rather than abolishing the executive presidency, it is best for the country to continue with the system with a degree of power-sharing, which is well defined, with the prime minister. By this we may be able to utilise the talent of two political leaders.
