Shameless

The 18th Amendment was unthinkable a few short months ago; today it is almost a fait accompli. Once again, we, as individuals and as a society, have passed effortlessly from disbelief (‘of course such things can never happen’) to indifference (‘so what does it matter?’). This indifference is probably an act of deception and self-deception on our part, aimed at concealing an unpalatable truth – that we have been deceived, yet again, by the Rajapakses. If we face that reality, we will have to acknowledge that we have conducted ourselves in a manner both unintelligent and cowardly. Better by far to go into collective denial and pretend, even to ourselves, that the Rajapakses are no worse than their predecessors and the 18th Amendment is just one more amendment to a much amended constitution…. And that we can get rid of Mahinda Rajapakse or his chosen successor electorally, if we so want, anytime we want.

The 18th Amendment has two main purposes – to strengthen the powers of the president in relation to the legislature, the judiciary and the populace; and to prevent a sitting president from having to retire at the end of the second term. In that sense the 18th Amendment to the constitution is tailor-made to perpetuate the powers of the current incumbent and his family. If the amendment does not materialise, Mahinda Rajapakse will have to retire from the presidency at the end of his second term. In consequence, his vice-like grip on the SLFP will begin to slacken in a few years, and he will fail to impose his chosen successor on an increasingly defiant party. This was what happened to Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga; this is what will happen to Mahinda Rajapakse sans the 18th Amendment.

Little wonder then, that the President is so keen to put the 18th Amendment in place. Thus the urgency, because without the 18th Amendment, Mr. Rajapakse’s own power as well as his dynastic ambitions will vanish in six years. That is why the Rajapakses are bulldozing this amendment through, even at the risk of exposing their naked power-hunger. This Amendment has no relevance to national security, economic development or popular welfare; but it is the sine qua non for the survival of Rajapakse power.

The Real Impact of the 18th Amendment

The real impact of the 18th Amendment on Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans cannot be understood without placing it in its context. The Amendment is the pet project of President Rajapakse who commands an absolute majority in parliament. The Speaker is his older brother while the Prime Minister is a mere nonentity in terms of actual power. The President is grooming his son, while at least one Presidential sibling is grooming himself, for eventual succession. The Ruling coalition is totally under the thumb of the President and his brothers, while even senior ministers defer to the neophyte Presidential Offspring publicly. In short, the President and his family command an enormous degree of power, both constitutionally and actually. The Amendment will strengthen and perpetuate this power, rendering impossible the electoral removal of President Rajapakse and perhaps even his chosen successor.

Take for instance the proposed amendment of Article 32: “The president shall by virtue of his office attend parliament once in every three months. In the discharge of this function the President shall be entitled to all the privileges, immunities and powers of a member of parliament, other than the entitlement to vote, and shall not be liable for any breach of the privileges of parliament or of its members. The president shall by virtue of his office also have the right to address and send messages to parliament”.

What would this amendment mean in reality? The President will be empowered to interfere in the activities of the parliament, without a corresponding empowerment of the parliament to interfere in the work of the Presidency. This amendment would thus exacerbate the lopsidedness already existent in the Lankan state. Thanks to this amendment President Rajapakse will be able to keep a tight rein on his parliamentarians directly. He will be able to come to the parliament periodically and address and order the parliament whenever he wants. This would violate the essential democratic principle of separation of power and ensure the total subjugation of the legislature to the executive.

The 17th Amendment was aimed at de-partisan-politicising key segments and positions of the state structure, thereby ensuring the basic freedoms and rights of the citizens and enabling a relatively balanced politico-electoral playing field. The Ruling Family made a conscious and a consistent effort to undermine this democratic legislation, from the inception, all the while paying lip service to it and to the ideals it strove to promote. The 18th Amendment has been drafted in part to nullify the 17th Amendment totally and to re-empower the President. According to this, “The chairmen and the members of the Commissions referred to in schedule I to this Article and persons referred to in Part I and Part II of Schedule II of this Article shall be appointed to the Commissions and the offices referred to in the said Schedules by the President”.

The Commissions referred to here are the Election Commission, the Public Service Commission, the National Police Commission, the Human Rights Commission, the Permanent Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption, the Finance Commission and the Delimitation Commission. Under the 18th Amendment the President will have the right to appoint members to all these commissions. They will therefore cease being independent commissions and become Rajapakse appendages, because the President will only appoint Rajapakse loyalists and he will have the constitutional power to remove any who ceases being a Rajapakse loyalist. The Commissions will thus become white elephants, rich pasturing grounds for faithful Rajapakse servitors.

The President will also have the power to appoint the following key officials: the Chief Justice and the judges of the Supreme Court, the President and the judges of the Court of Appeal, the members of the Judicial Service Commission other than the Chairman, the Attorney General, the Auditor General, the Ombudsman and the Secretary General of Parliament. Needless to say, this would exacerbate the partisan-politicisation of the Lankan state to unprecedented levels, since the same President is not compelled to retire after two terms but has the power to contest again and again.

According to the Amendment, “in making such appointments the President shall seek the observations of the following persons: the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, a nominee of the PM who shall be a member of parliament and a nominee of the opposition who shall be a member of parliament”. But the President need not respect their observations or even take them into account. It is a mere formality.

In any case, since the Speaker is the current President’s brother and the PM is totally under his thumb, President Rajapakse is ensured of majority support even within this toothless entity. The leaders of political parties represented in parliament can suggest names; “the President may take such names into consideration when making such appointments”…or he may not. Another clause in the Amendment takes away the Elections Commissioner’s ability to appoint a Competent Authority to prevent the sitting president from abusing the state media to his advantage or that of his party during an election time.

In other words, the powers of President Rajapakse will become absolute and his tenure permanent. He will have the sole power to appoint and remove Commissions, Commissioners and top officials; he will have the sole power to heed or not heed advice given to him. He will appoint the Elections Commissioner and the Elections Commission; he will appoint the IGP and the Police Commission; he will appoint the Human Rights Commission. He will also make all the top judicial appointments. His wishes will be paramount in everything, since he will own the ‘spoon’. And he will be able to contest as many times as he wishes. It will be a dictatorship in effect.

The 18th Amendment will enable the President to make and break careers with total impunity. Would public officials, civil or military, want to antagonise President Rajapakse by acting justly and independently, when their career prospects and opportunities for post-retirement preferment are completely dependent on him? Particularly when they can know how far, fast and hard a man can fall, once he has antagonised the Rajapakse brothers, by looking at the fate of once mighty Gen. Fonseka.

Public Indifference

The road to tyranny is often paved with indifference on the part of unexceptionable, law-abiding citizens. No perilous turning point happens in a vacuum but is preceded by innumerable official misdeeds, to which the society should have reacted with outrage but did not, deeming them unimportant, irrelevant or kosher. The Rajapakses have come within striking distance of transforming Sri Lanka from a flawed democracy into a dynastic oligarchy because their crimes and abuses have gone largely unchallenged by Lankan society, especially that intellectual-ethical obscenity, the zero-civilian casualty myth (and the incarceration of more than 300,000 Tamils in ‘welfare villages’).

When a society is afflicted with indifference, resistance becomes a non-option. In such bleak psychological landscapes would-be tyrants thrive. Today the Rajapakses are making a blatant power-grab, motivated by nothing other than greed and ambition, and, yet, where is the outrage? Why aren’t we opposing, to the full democratic measure, this most anti-democratic deed?

Is our psychological degradation so complete, we see nothing wrong in Mahinda Rajapakse being president for life or Namal (or Basil or Gotabhaya) Rajapakse succeeding him? Or have we been deceived by that beguiling lie assiduously spread by Rajapakse apologists – that the 18th Amendment would not endanger democracy, because the electorate can vote out Mahinda Rajapakse or his chosen successor, whenever necessary?

So the Emperor is finally divested of his dazzling patriotic mantle, his vulturous greed for power and grandiose dynastic ambitions bared. If the 18th Amendment is through, other constitutional reforms will follow, subverting democratic freedoms in the name of national security. The regime’s political solution to the ethnic problem (if it materialises) will involve less and not more devolution.

The Rajapakses do not want to share power anymore than they want to give it up. Once the 18th Amendment is through, Rajapakses will be able to rule for life. Our criminally stupid indifference would have enabled the transformation of Sri Lanka from a flawed democracy into a Family Oligarchy.

-Asian Tribune-