That the government would baulk at taking up the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill for debate on Thursday (06) and putting it to the vote the following day was a foregone conclusion. It does not have a two-thirds majority in the House, and the ruling SLPP is experiencing an internal dispute over the Bill. SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam himself raised objections to the Bill, or some parts of it, to be exact, as well as the timing of the parliamentary debate on it. When he revealed his position on the Bill in public, everybody knew the government would make a U-turn on Thursday. The Bill is scheduled to be taken up for debate next week, the government has said, but the odds are that it may be further delayed.
It is baffling why the government ever decided to try its luck at having the 22nd Amendment Bill passed despite being fully aware that the chances of its success were remote. Its rush has prompted its critics to claim that it is under international pressure to amend the Constitution and ensure the full implementation of the 13th Amendment. The Bill in question does not say it seeks to strengthen the Provincial Councils at the expense of the executive presidency, but the critics of it claim the government is planning to change the Bill at the committee stage to facilitate the enhancement of the powers of the Provincial Councils and bring the Governors under the Chief Ministers. It is not only the Chief Ministers of the Northern and Eastern Provinces who have clashed with the Governors; even their counterparts in other parts of the country have done so. All Chief Ministers are agreed on the need to clip the wings of the Governors appointed by the President.
Justice Minister, Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa, speaking in the parliament on Thursday, admitted that the UN, the EU and the IMF kept inquiring from the Justice Ministry when the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution would see the light of day. Others did not understand the gravity of the situation, he said. His statement could be taken as proof that the government is under international pressure to implement the 22nd Amendment. But how can it accomplish that task without a two-thirds majority?
Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, on Thursday, tried to have the House believe that the postponement of the debate on the 22nd Amendment Bill was due to President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s special statement on the economy and the debate on it. He also said some Opposition MPs had gone back on their word after expressing their willingness to support the Bill. He came under fire from the Opposition benches for making what the latter called a misleading statement. Opposition and SJB Leader, Sajith Premadasa, asked the government to refrain from blaming the Opposition for the postponement of the debate and the vote on the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill. He said the government had put off the debate due to an internal dispute of the SLPP over the Bill.
Numerous vicissitudes, twists and turns, which are both tragic and farcical, and ups and downs which Sri Lanka has experienced on all fronts during its anfractuous journey since 1978, when the current Constitution was promulgated, have both proved and disproved the arguments for and against the executive presidency, paradoxical as it may sound.
All elected Presidents, since 1994, when the UNP lost power for the first time after the introduction of the executive presidency, pledged to abolish the executive presidency. Prominent among them was Chandrika Kumaratunga, who together with her late husband Vijaya Kumaratunga campaigned vehemently against the executive presidency while they were in the Opposition. But none of them cared to fulfil their promises, after securing the coveted post, and the executive presidency has come to stay.
President Kumaratunga made a half-hearted attempt in 2000 to abolish the executive presidency, but wanted to become the Executive Prime Minister with enhanced powers. She offered to restore the Westminster system out of expediency rather than principle; having become the President twice, she sought to remain the Head of State as the Prime Minister because the Constitution barred her from seeking a third presidential term. Her constitutional reform project fell through because the UNP refused to support it. The People’s Alliance (PA) led by her party, the SLFP, did not have a two-thirds majority, and she expected the UNP to support the Bill to introduce a new Constitution. The UNP insisted that she had introduced some changes to the amendment Bill without its consent, and therefore it would not support her move. Its MPs literally set the Bill on fire in the House.
Mahinda Rajapaksa enlisted the support of the JVP for his presidential election campaign in 2005 by promising to do away with the executive presidency after securing it. Instead of honoring his pledge, he vested more powers in the presidency by winning a second term and introducing the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 2010. His successor, Maithripala Sirisena, also, promised to abolish the executive presidency but only had some of the presidential powers reduced. The strategy of the UNP, which helped him win the presidency, was to reduce the powers of Sirisena and make Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe more powerful through the 17th Amendment. Sirisena, however, did not allow the UNP to implement its plan fully; he retained some vital executive powers.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa became the President, promising a new Constitution, but had to resign due to popular uprisings. Current President Ranil Wickremesinghe is trying to amend the Constitution again purportedly to strengthen the parliament at the expense of the executive presidency. Whether he is genuinely interested in stripping himself of executive powers, after becoming the President too late in the day, is anybody’s guess.
There is a school of thought that too much power is concentrated in the executive presidency at the expense of the legislature and the judiciary, and the Executive President can act like a dictator. When Ranasinghe Premadasa was the Prime Minister under President J. R. Jayewardene, he famously said in Parliament that he was as powerless as a peon in a government office. But the Prime Minister becomes more powerful than the President when he and the President happen to represent two different parties.
President D. B. Wijetunga became a mere figurehead to all intents and purposes when his party, the UNP, lost power at the 1994 general election. The same fate befell President Kumaratunga in 2001, when the UNP recaptured power, defeating the PA. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe undermined her. She sacked the UNP-led government in 2004, and the PA regained power. President Maithripala Sirisena also did not have a parliamentary majority from 2015 to 2019, and therefore Prime Minister Wickremesinghe became the de facto Head of State. President Sirisena made an abortive attempt to sack the UNP-led government. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa failed mainly because the SLPP parliamentary group, which is controlled by Basil Rajapaksa, did not fully cooperate with him. Today, President Wickremesinghe without a parliamentary majority finds himself in a similar predicament with the SLPP undermining him.
Thus, it may be seen that the President can exercise all his or her powers and remain powerful only when he or she is able to keep the legislature and the Prime Minister under his or her thumb as the leader of the ruling party with a comfortable parliamentary majority. We saw how helpless President Sirisena was when the legislature controlled by the UNP took him on in 2018. The Parliament thwarted his attempt to dissolve it after sacking Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and appointing Mahinda Rajapaksa as the PM. He was left with egg on his face. Today, the SLPP is controlling President Wickremesinghe, having elected him as President Rajapaksa’s successor. In other words, the legislature has become more powerful than the Executive at present.
It is said that the Executive President is so powerful that he or she tends to act like Hitler. But Presidents Wijetunga, Sirisena and Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not emulate ‘der Fuhrer’ in dealing with dissenters, and Rajapaksa even ran away, fearing the public. All other Presidents, namely, Jayewardene, Premadasa Kumaratunga, and Mahinda Rajapaksa stood accused of abusing their powers and suppressing dissent violently. President Wickremesinghe has also drawn fire for abusing his presidential power and using heavy-handed tactics in dealing with anti-government protesters.
The proponents of the executive presidency maintain that the country needs a strong leader to ensure national security and achieve its development goals. The country would not have been able to defeat terrorism if not for the executive presidency, they argue. But the war dragged on for over 25 years under four Executive Presidents—Jayewardene, Premadasa, Wijetunga and Kumaratunga—before being concluded in 2009. If Mahinda Rajapaksa had not become the President, the LTTE would have continued its separatist war.
If it is the executive presidency that helped end the war, how come four failed to achieve that task for 25 long years? Most of all, the executive powers did not enable President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is a former battle-hardened combat officer, even to counter popular uprisings against him; he chose to run away. Strangely, his successor, Wickremesinghe, who was once considered a weak leader, went on the offensive and beat back the Aragalaya.
If the executive presidency helps usher in economic prosperity, how come the country has become bankrupt? The Gotabaya Rajapaksa government was blamed for ruining the economy. It no doubt was responsible for creating conditions for the economic collapse; it totally mismanaged the economy, but the fact remains that the economy had not been doing well for the past several decades, and the debt crisis would have sent it into a tailspin one day; the Gotabaya administration only precipitated the economic meltdown amidst the Covid-19 crisis.
What one gathers from the foregoing is that as for Sri Lanka’s predicament, the fault lies not in the executive presidency as such but in the wielders of it, except perhaps for President Wijetunga, who exercised his executive much better than his predecessors and successors. If all other Presidents had acted responsibly, upholding democracy and the separation of powers, perhaps, there would not have been calls for abolishing the executive presidency. However, since the vast majority of politicians are given to abusing power, it may be prudent to put in place constitutional mechanisms to restrain them and ensure checks and balances. The task of amending the Constitution or replacing it has to be accomplished with the concurrence of all stakeholders, if the supreme law is to stand the test of time.
