The government is drawing heavy flak for what its critics call misplaced priorities; it appears to be keener to amend the Constitution than to sort out the economic crisis or take action to avert a possible famine, which agricultural experts have warned of. Respected academics such as Prof. Buddhi Marambe of the University of Peradeniya have sounded an ominous warning; there will be a huge food crisis come August. They have called upon the government and the public to step up food production to prevent such an eventuality.
The draft of the proposed 21st Amendment to the Constitution has been submitted to the Cabinet and is to be presented to the parliament shortly. Amending the Constitution should be a consensual process if changes to the supreme law of the country are to stand the test of time. A section of the SLPP, upon which Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is dependent on to stay in power, is opposed to the 21st Amendment. The opponents of it are the loyalists of Basil Rajapaksa, who controls the SLPP. The main reason for their opposition is the proposed constitutional provision to bar dual citizens from holding political office. Basil is a dual citizen.
Proposed constitutional reforms
The government undertook to introduce constitutional reforms in response to a spate of mass agitations in a bid to bring about political stability and social order to facilitate the ongoing efforts to revive the economy. The youth took to the streets, demanding what they called a system change, and asking President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the government to step down immediately. What fueled their protests was the economic crisis, which has caused untold hardships to everyone. But the political changes that have since taken place are far from radical or systemic. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned and Wickremesinghe became his successor. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa hesitated to accept the President’s offer of the premiership. Now, SJBP MP Sarath Fonseka has told the parliament that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa offered the premiership to him as well!
The Gota-go Gama agitation, which became the mother of all protests, has lost steam since the 09 May violence, which swept across many parts of the country, following an SLPP goon attack on the Galle Face protesters. Thus, pressure on the government to introduce political reforms has abated considerably. An opportunity has presented itself for the government to concentrate more on resolving the economic crisis, which is the root cause of social unrest and political upheavals, but it does not appear to be doing so, according to its critics.
Skyrocketing cost of living
The headline inflation continues to quicken much more than anticipated last month in the midst of worsening food and fuel shortages despite the country’s efforts to hoist itself out of the economic crisis. Consumer prices in Colombo have risen 39.1% from a year ago, according to the Department of Census and Statistics. That’s much faster than the median 35% climb forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey and is the highest level on record. Worse, the food inflation has surged 57.4% unprecedentedly while prices of non-food items jumped 30.6%.
Unless the government redoubles its efforts to ameliorate the suffering of the public, especially the poor, urgently, no amount of political reform will help bring about social stability; at this rate, food riots are bound to break out. Frequent clashes over kerosene and LP gas are reported from various parts of the country, and how bad the situation will be in case of people having to line up for food rations is not difficult to imagine.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe in a special statement on the economy in the parliament on Tuesday (07) agreed in principle to a suggestion by the JVP that fuel be rationed. The government has also promised relief to the poor through an interim budget to be presented soon. But the question is how funds will be raised for such relief measures. One of the major causes of the current economic crisis is the excessive money printing for cash handouts and baskets of goods distributed among the Covid-19 pandemic victims, and a massive relief package worth Rs. 229 billion unveiled subsequently.
The proponents of political reforms argue that it is not possible to stabilize the economy without political stability, which the ongoing efforts to introduce constitutional reforms are said to be aimed at. Protests are likely to break out again unless political reforms are introduced soon, they say, insisting that economic reforms and political reforms should go together for public anger to be assuaged.
But only a consensual approach to amending the Constitution will help bring about the much-needed cooperation among the warring political parties to ensure that the 21st Amendment will pave the way for political stability. Clashes among stakeholders over constitutional reforms will only jeopardize the semblance of political stability and social order achieved during the past few weeks.
Executive Presidency
One of the main demands of the anti-government protesters is that the executive presidency be abolished. But the position of the chief architect of the proposed 21st Amendment, Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa, is that it will be disastrous to scrap the executive presidency in view of the Provincial Council system, among other things. He has gone on record as saying that the abolition of the executive presidency will plunge the country into anarchy, and what needs to be done is to reduce some of the executive powers of the President and strengthen the position of the parliament through the restoration of the provisions of the 19th Amendment in the form of the proposed 21st Amendment.
The SJB demands the abolition of the executive presidency. So does the JVP. They cannot be unaware that their goal is not attainable anytime soon, and an overhaul of the Constitution will require a national referendum, which cannot be held at this juncture. They may therefore agree to the 21st Amendment provided the powers of the President are drastically curtailed.
President Rajapaksa has told Bloomberg that he will complete the remainder of his current term, and will not seek re-election. He has said he does not want to retire as a failed president. This is likely to provoke his political enemies who are calling for his immediate resignation.
Interestingly, the 21st Amendment, if passed, will come with transitional provisions such as the one that allows the incumbent President to remove the Prime Minister, and it is believed that in the case of the 21st Amendment becoming a reality, President Rajapaksa will remain as powerful as his predecessor, Maithripala Sirisena, was, despite efforts by the anti-government protesters to reduce him to a political nonentity overnight.
Need for right balance
Economic recovery and political stability are interdependent and have to go together if the country is to lift itself out of the current crisis. Balance is of the essence. Unless the right balance is maintained between the two processes, public anger, which is welling up, is likely to spill over on to the streets again. The government is not seen to be performing that balancing act properly. Hence the allegation that it is preoccupied with constitutional reforms at a time when its focus should be on the economic front and food production.
The SJB called upon the government, in the parliament, on Tuesday, to stop talking about the problems and tell the House how it proposed to solve them. It must have struck a responsive chord with the public who are at the end of their tether. But, the Opposition, too, has not presented an alternative plan of action, spelling out how it proposes to resolve the economic crisis, and prevent a possible famine. Both the government and the Opposition are doing what they know how to do best—unseemly politicking, which has been the bane of this country.
