By Vishvanath
This is the season of pledges. With the next presidential election fast approaching, the contenders for the presidency are making all kinds of promises ranging from pay hikes to constitutional reforms. It looks as if they were taking part in a promise-making contest and working under the misconception that the candidate who makes the highest number of pledges has a better chance of winning the presidency.
Even President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had been insisting until a few weeks ago that it would not be possible to increase the public sector salaries or reduce taxes on account of the agreement between Sri Lanka and the IMF, has undertaken to grant pay hikes and revise taxes!
SJB presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa has pledged to do away with the executive presidency. His promise has struck a responsive chord with the leftist parties that have closed ranks with him. By doing so, he has added another plank to his election platform, and ventured into a new terrain. The focus of most candidates and the public has been on the state of the economy, economic and political reforms, the high cost of living, the unbearable tax burden and good governance or the absence of it. Not many people seem to have evinced any interest in scrapping the presidency or the promulgation of a new Constitution. Their priorities are different.
JVP/NPP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is running for President, has also pledged to abolish the executive presidency. His party’s antipathy towards that institution has remained consistent, and therefore his promise at issue has not received the same media attention as Sajith’s.
Father and son
Interestingly, it was Sajith’s father, Ranasinghe Premadasa, who seconded the then UNP Deputy Leader J. R. Jayewardene’s proposal to the Constituent Assembly, in 1971 that an executive presidential system be introduced. The UNP was divided on that score, and A. C. S. Hameed opposed Jayewardene’s proposal. The left allies of the SLFP-led United Front government insisted that the parliamentary system of government was better suited for Sri Lanka. Supporting this view, Minister of Constitutional Affairs Dr. Colvin R. de Silva said one virtue of the parliamentary system was that the chief executive of the day was answerable directly to the representatives of the people.
UNP Leader Dudley Senanayake was forthright in his criticism of the presidential system, which he said would spell disaster for the country. He said: “The presidential system has worked in the United States, where it was the result of a special historic situation. It worked in France for similar reasons. But for Ceylon it would be disastrous. It would create a tradition of Caesarism. It would concentrate power in a leader and undermine parliament and the structure of the political parties. In America and France, it has worked but generally it is a system for a Nkrumah or a Nasser, not for a free democracy.”
1978 Constitution
It was after the UNP’s mammoth victory at the 1977 general election, that Jayewardene was able to achieve his presidential dream. Using his party’s five-sixths majority he introduced a new Constitution in 1978 for that purpose, and elevated himself to the presidency without an election. Premadasa succeeded him as the President after he had completed his two terms in 1988.
Naturally, being staunch proponents of the executive presidency neither Jayewardene nor Premadasa offered to abolish it.
Promises to abolish the executive presidency are of no recent origin, though. They have been made at all presidential elections since 1982, when the country elected the first Executive President. The SLFP and leftist parties have since been calling for the scrapping of the presidency.
Chandrika and her pledge
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga took the campaign against the executive presidency to the next level as a candidate in the 1994 presidential election. She sought a mandate for abolishing it. Her solemn pledge to do so was the main reason why the JVP refrained from fielding a candidate at that election; it had obtained one seat in Parliament by contesting from Ariya Bulegoda’s Sri Lanka Progressive Front. The SLFP-led People’s Alliance (PA) reached an understanding with the JVP, which agreed not to contest on the condition that Kumaratunga would abolish the presidency, and the PA managed to prevent a split in the anti-UNP vote. However, owing to the assassination of UNP presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake in the run-up to the 1994 presidential election, and the resultant debilitation of the UNP, Kumaratunga would have won even if the JVP had entered the fray. She obtained 62% of the total number of valid votes.
Kumaratunga renewed her pledge to scrap the presidency in 1999, and after securing a second term, she sought to introduce a new Constitution, in 2000, with the help of the UNP; she had no way of mustering a two-thirds majority on her own. Her critics said she was trying to remain the Head of State as the Executive Prime Minister after promulgating a new Constitution because she could not contest another presidential election. Her constitution-making project collapsed as the UNP withdrew its support on the eve of the presentation of a draft Constitution in the parliament; it claimed that she had changed the draft Constitution without its concurrence. The following year, she agreed to bring in the 17th Amendment to the Constitution to curtail some executive presidential powers while her government was teetering on the verge of collapse.
Mahinda’s promise
Mahinda Rajapaksa also undertook to do away with the executive presidency, and a 12-point agreement he entered into with the JVP in 2005 to secure the latter’s support at that year’s presidential election made specific mention of this pledge: “The Executive Presidential System being most destructive and harmful to the democracy of Sri Lanka and having accepted its abolition as an essential priority task, it is hereby agreed to terminate the Executive Presidential System before the end of the tenure of office of the 6th Executive President, which is to be commenced from the year 2005.”
Rajapaksa won the presidency, and in 2009, the JVP pressured him to honour his pledge instead of holding another presidential election, but he reneged on that promise, and the JVP backed Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who challenged him in the 2010 presidential election, albeit unsuccessfully. Fonseka promised to abolish the executive presidency, which he said was paving the way for totalitarianism.
Sirisena and presidency
In 2015, Maithripala Sirisena ran for President, promising to scrap the executive presidency, but only had some presidential powers curtailed instead. He also misused his executive powers in a bid to wrest control of the parliament from the UNP after falling out with his Yahapalana partner, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Sirisena declared at his inauguration in January 2015 that he would not seek a second term, but he embarked on his re-election campaign soon after his election for all practical purposes. The Easter Sunday terror attacks, and their political fallout ruined his chances of winning a presidential election, and he opted out of the 2019 presidential race.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not promise to scrap the presidency. Instead, he introduced the 20th Amendment, which restored the presidential powers that 19th Amendment had curtailed. The 21st Amendment, which was passed by the parliament after Gotabaya’s resignation as President due to a mass uprising stripped the presidency of some of its powers again.
Premadasa and Dissanayake have given a fillip to the campaign against the executive presidency, again. But all signs are that the executive presidency will survive the president to be elected. Promises made before elections are forgotten afterwards, and the campaign for the abolition of the executive presidency is relegated to the backburner.
It is doubtful whether the public will be swayed by the candidates’ promises to scrap the executive presidency, for they know such pledges invariably go unfilled. No political leaders wants to let go of power after savouring it.
