Sri Lankans find themselves in a contradiction, a huge one at that. They desire to have strong leaders, and, at the same time, seek to strengthen democracy through checks and balances. Perhaps, this is arguably attributable to a kind of genetic predisposition; they were under powerful monarchs, both native and foreign, for millennia, and given to deifying warrior kings, and therefore their predilection for strong leaders has apparently got into their DNA.
Sri Lankans revere their ancient absolute rulers and extoll the latter’s legacies such as engineering marvels found in some parts of the country. For instance, King Mahasen (277-304 CE), who built the Minneriya reservoir, which has stood the country in good stead, has been elevated as a deity—Minneriya Deviyo. The fact that most of the venerated monarchs were ruthless, and the forms of punishment they meted out to wrongdoers as well as their enemies were savage is often overlooked or glossed over by chroniclers and laypersons alike. Maybe, Sri Lankans share this trait with their counterparts in other countries that too have undergone transformation from kingdoms to republics.
Leniency seen as weakness
Leaders’ leniency and flexibility are perceived as weaknesses in Sri Lanka. Prime Ministers Dudley Senanayake and S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike were considered weak leaders. Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala projected himself as a strong leader by taking on his opponents, but lacked a charismatic popular appeal.
The country’s Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake was in a league of his own; mild-mannered, he endeared himself to the people with his dedication to public service, and nobody cared to ascertain whether he had any weaknesses, at all.
Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike made a name for herself as a strong leader, especially due to her handling of the JVP’s first insurrection in 1971. It was jokingly said that she was the only man in the United Front government!
It J. R. Jayewardene who made the Head of State as powerful as ancient rulers, in a manner of speaking, by establishing the executive presidential system in 1978.
Executive Presidency
Jayewardene had been advocating the executive presidency even during his Opposition days, and was able to realize his dream only after winning a five-sixths majority at the 1977 general election, where the SLFP was reduced to a mere eight seats. He had a new Constitution promulgated the following year itself and appointed himself the Executive President.
Thereafter, Sri Lankans realized what it was like to live under a truly powerful leader, with Jayewardene exercising all the executive powers vested in the presidency and even pushing the envelope. He used to boast that he, as the President, could do anything except making a man a woman and vice versa.
Legendary leftist and former Finance Minister, Dr. N. M. Perera, was one of the first few political leaders to foresee the deleterious effect the executive presidency would have on the other branches of government in general, and in particular the country’s democracy. He analyzed the executive presidency incisively in a booklet, A Critical Analysis of the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka, and all his predictions have come true over the decades.
All elected Presidents save Ranasinghe Premadasa and his immediate successor D. B. Wijetunga, who was elected by the parliament following the assassination of Premadasa in 1993, undertook to abolish the Executive Presidency, which came to be perceived as a fountainhead of evil thanks to the abuse of executive powers by the Presidents to undermine the legislature and the judiciary and suppress the people’s fundamental rights.
Weakening and strengthening presidency
None of the presidential candidates who secured the executive presidency, promising to abolish it, fulfilled their pledges. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was the first to make that promise and renege on it after becoming the President in 1994. It may be said in fairness to her that in 2000, she tried to introduce a new Constitution, which envisaged the abolition of the executive presidency, but lacked a two-thirds majority to have it passed. The UNP-led Opposition rejected it, claiming that some transitional provisions had been incorporated without its concurrence. She could have won over the Opposition if she had cared to soften her stand and dilute the draft Constitution, but she did not care to do so. Her critics said she was trying to enter the parliament as the Prime Minister after completing her second term.
However, there have been five constitutional amendments that have weakened and strengthened the executive presidency alternately. The first one was the 17th Amendment, introduced in 2001 during the Kumaratunga government, which was teetering on the brink of collapse due to mass crossovers. It paved the way for the setting up of several independent commissions to depoliticize and strengthen some vital state institutions such as the public service. The Constitutional Council became the mother of all independent commissions. The 17th Amendment lasted nine years.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, who scraped through, at the 2005 presidential election, and provided leadership to the war against the LTTE, had the public believe that the country needed a strong leader to achieve its development goals and safeguard its national security. After winning the war, and securing a two-thirds majority in the parliament in 2010, he strengthened the executive presidency through the 18th Amendment to Constitution, rendering the 17th Amendment ineffective. He became an iron-fisted leader, and alienated most of his supporters. Sycophants boosted his ego by projecting him as the reincarnation of King Dutugemunu, no less, and even created a song, Ayu bo wewa, Maharajanani in praise of him.
The UNP-led Opposition successfully campaigned for taming the presidency and won a popular mandate in 2015 by defeating President Rajapaksa in the presidential race and dislodging his government in quick succession. President Maithripala Sirisena, who succeeded Mahinda, did not rule the country with an iron fist and allowed some of his executive powers to be abolished through the 19th Amendment, which restored the Constitutional Council and strengthened the independent commissions again. He came to be considered a weak leader. Perhaps, it was to overcome the wimp factor that he declared war on drug lords and it became popular.
The need for a ‘truly’ strong leader was felt again. National security was neglected, and when the Easter Sunday terror attacks happened in 2019, the Rajapaksas revived their campaign for enhancing the executive powers of the President and succeeded in convincing the public that the country needed a strong leader to look after its national security and usher in development. They marketed former Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa as a savior. Prominent among the untiring advocates of a strong leader were some prominent Buddhist monks, who went so far as to declare in public that they did not mind even having a leader like Hitler if he could deliver. They promoted Gotabaya, a former military officer known as a ruthless man of action, and he was elected President in 2019. The people thought they had got a strong leader, at last!
Initially, Gotabaya demonstrated a desire to bulldoze his way through. He appointed former military officers to key positions in the state service, and even ordered that public officials disregard all government circulars and carry out his instructions, instead, because he was the popularly elected Executive President! But with the passage of time, the sobering political reality had a mellowing effect on him, and he chose to act with some restraint. He made blunders in vital sectors such as agriculture, and under his watch the country was officially declared bankrupt. He had to resign, unable to face a popular uprising triggered by people’s suffering caused by the soaring cost of living and various scarcities.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was elected President by the Parliament in July 2022 following Gotabaya’s resignation, was not considered a strong leader when he served as the Prime Minister in previous governments. He used to draw fire for appeasing the LTTE, pandering to the whims and fancies of foreign powers and compromising the national interest.
But Wickremesinghe has proved to be a tougher leader than his predecessor. Or, at least, he is trying to do so. Much to everyone’s surprise, he crushed the anti-government protests that had ousted Gotabaya. He deployed the military and declared a state of Emergency to deal with protesters. He has recently declared in the parliament that he does not mind even acting like Hitler to hold the anti-government protesters at bay. This is something the people expected of Gotabaya when trouble started for him in late March 2022 with a crowd of people surrounding his private residence at Mirihana.
Interestingly, the Executive Presidency, which was created by Jayewardene, who wanted to be a strong leader, has come to be wielded by his nephew, Wickremesinghe, who is following in his footsteps and is all out to consolidate his power, the only difference between the two leaders being that the latter was compelled by circumstances to allow some of his executive powers to be whittled down through a constitutional amendment because his party has only a single seat in the parliament.
We have in the current Parliament many MPs who have voted for all constitutional amendments under different governments since 2001 either to reduce or to enhance presidential powers! The people are no better; they, too, have chosen to elect toughies and softies, so to speak, as Presidents alternately in the hope that their lot will improve. Their experiment has not yielded the desired results, and the country has become bankrupt. However, their quest for strong leaders is likely to continue. Hope is said to spring eternal.
