Should we take Ranil Wickremesinghe seriously?
The question is being posed because of comments Wickremesinghe made recently to Samantha Power who visited Sri Lanka recently in her current capacity as Administrator of the USAID programme.
Power is no stranger to Sri Lanka. Formerly a United States ambassador to the United Nations, she is a keen follower of events in our country and was a close associate of former Foreign Minister, the late Mangala Samaraweera for whom she had much respect. Through Samaraweera, she worked closely with Wickremesinghe as well, when he was the Prime Minister in the ‘yahapalanaya’ government. Given this relationship, we cannot dismiss what Wickremesinghe told Samantha Power, lightly.
President Wickremesinghe told her during their recent meeting that he would give political parties six months to agree on electoral reforms. If they cannot, he would call a referendum, Wickremesinghe said.
The statements released to the media do not clarify what these ‘electoral reforms’ are. The only elections which are being stalled because of electoral reforms so far are the local government elections. Even that obstacle too could be easily overcome if Parliament endorses changes to the current local government election laws.
If, on the other hand, Wickremesinghe is indeed not shy to conduct a referendum, there are many more urgent issues that could be best dealt with through that mechanism. For instance, many do not expect the current incarnation of the previous 19th Amendment to the Constitution, now presented to Parliament as the 22nd Amendment, to see the light of day.
No one, least of all Wickremesinghe, seems to be in a hurry to see it through Parliament. The Supreme Court has determined that some of its clauses which prunes the powers of the Executive President, need approval at a referendum. Now, there’s a referendum if Wickremesinghe is thinking of having one!
The 20th Amendment to the Constitution, currently in force, prevents the President from dissolving Parliament until March 2023. In the aftermath of the recent political upheaval, there is a clamour to change the composition of the present Parliament and therefore a demand for a general election. Now, there’s another referendum if Wickremesinghe is thinking of having one: he could easily hold a referendum to dissolve Parliament immediately.
Such a referendum would be guaranteed of success in the current political climate of the country. It would also be in stark contrast to the only referendum held thus far in the country, conducted by Wickremesinghe’s uncle, former President J.R. Jayewardene who held a referendum in 1982 to extend the life the then Parliament. Jayewardene prevailed but that referendum was conducted in extremely questionable circumstances and severely tarnished his reputation as a democrat.
We are certain however, that Wickremesinghe will do no such thing. He has assured his new found political allies, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) that there will be no general election until when it is due in 2025. Moreover, having a general election now will be disastrous for his own United National Party (UNP) which is still struggling to rise from the political ashes it was consigned to at the last general election.
So, if the referendum is about electoral reforms but not about a general election, what exactly is Wickremesinghe talking about? Is he planning to replace the currently operative Proportional Representation (PR) system of voting with the previous first-past-the-post system or a more equitable hybrid of the two?
That would be a welcome move. The PR system is the bane of the current political system. That is why, politicians elected to Parliament for the first time under the PR system in 1989 linger on like bad smells, never leaving Parliament. Their ‘name recognition’ factor ensure sufficient preference votes for re-election and prevent the public from punishing corrupt or inefficient politicians by defeating them.
The PR system also creates a culture where politicians have to canvass not in a single electorate but in an entire district. This requires enormous amounts of money for campaigning which the politician then has to recoup during his term of office. This sets the tone for unbridled corruption.
Wickremesinghe has not said that he plans to abolish or diminish the PR system for national elections. However, if he does so, it will entail a delay in all elections. That is because, if the PR system is modified and a first-past-the-post system is re-instated, new electorates, taking into account the changes in population demographics will need to be demarcated, a process that cannot be completed in a hurry and will take several years at the minimum.
This would, of course, suit Wickremesinghe just fine. He could tell the world that, the great democrat that he is, he is modifying the electoral system to ensure a more balanced representation in Parliament. At the same time, he would be surreptitiously hoodwinking the Sri Lankan voter by automatically delaying general elections for as long as he can, giving the opportunity for his UNP to regroup and re-invent itself, if that is at all possible under Wickremesinghe’s leadership.
This could be Wickremesinghe’s ploy when he tells Samantha Power that he wants electoral reforms, or else he will conduct a referendum. To give credit where it is due, Ranil Wickremesinghe is no political genius, nor is he even averagely astute in statecraft, but he is as Machiavellian as his uncle JR ever was- or perhaps even more!
If Ranil Wickremesinghe was politically smart and also thinking about the welfare of the nation- instead of his own political career- his ascension to the Presidency would have been the perfect opportunity to bury the hatchet with the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB). That would have automatically resurrected the UNP. Even D. B. Wijetunge, the simpleton that he was supposed to be, invited Gamini Dissanayake and the Democratic United National Front (DUNF) no sooner he became President and, as a result, the UNP remained intact.
Wickremesinghe has visions of resurrecting his Grand Old Party the UNP, but such visions are coloured by his own personal ambitions and blinded by personal prejudices- and none are so blind that those who do not wish to see.
