Funday Times

Two Presidents remembered
This year saw stamps being issued to commemorate two Executive Presidents of Sri Lanka. The two are the first President, J. R. Jayewardene and the other, D. B. Wijetunga, the third Executive President. A stamp in honour of the second President, Ranasinghe Premadasa was issued earlier, on April 29, 2002 to mark his ninth death anniversary.

Let us see how the Executive Presidency came into being in Sri Lanka. The Westminster style of government, where the executive power lay in the Parliament and exercised through the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers, was in existence since Sri Lanka gained Independence in 1948 and continued even after the country became a Republic in 1972. Until 1972, Sri Lanka was a Monarchy of one form or another.

From the time of King Vijaya (600 B.C), the monarchy continued through to Queen Elizabeth II of England. A Governor represented the monarch of England during the time Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was a colony in the British Empire and later by a Governor-General after the country became Independent. It was abolished only in 1972 when a President (incumbent Governor-General William Gopallawa) was appointed under the Republican Constitution.

In the 1977 General Election, the United National Party (UNP) was returned with a 5/6th majority and the party leader, J. R. Jayewardene became the Prime Minister. A few months after the government was formed in July/August 1977, the Cabinet and the Parliamentary Group decided to present a Bill introducing the Executive Presidential system of government. The Bill was passed in Parliament by a 2/3rd majority.

The incumbent Prime Minister J. R. Jayewardene became the first Executive President on February 4, 1978. It was a complete change with executive power being vested in a President elected by the people and legislative power being vested in the elected Legislature. Although he could have held office until December 1983, he decided to call for an election earlier to test whether the people would accept the government’s policies. Thus the people went to vote at a Presidential Election on October 20, 1982 to elect a President for a term of six years as laid down in the Constitution.

Out of the six candidates who contested the Presidential Election, UNP’s J. R. Jayewardene was elected when he secured 3,450,811 votes (52.91%). Hector Kobbekaduwa, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party candidate received 2,548,438 (39.07%) votes. (Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike could not contest since she had lost her civic rights).The third was JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera who polled 273,439 (4.19%) vote. He and three others (G G Ponnambalam – Tamil Congress, Colvin R de Silva – LSSP & Vasudeva Nanayakkara-NSSP) lost their deposits.

Veteran politician J. R. Jayewardene counted half a century in politics starting as a member of the Colombo Municipal Council in 1940. Having entered the State Council in 1943 to represent the Kelaniya seat, he was elected to Parliament in 1947. and served as Independent Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister in the D. S. Senanayake Cabinet. Having lost the 1956 general election, he came back to Parliament in 1960 and was an MP continuously serving as Leader of the Opposition in the 1970 Parliament and becoming Prime Minister when the UNP won in 1977.

Since a President cannot serve more than two terms, Jayewardene retired in 1989 and died on November 1,1996 at the age of ninety. The 4.50 stamp issued on September 17, 2004 was to commemorate his 98th birth anniversary.

UNP’s Ranasinghe Premadasa was elected second Executive President at the Presidential Election held on December 19, 1988. He received 2,569,199 votes (50.4%) as against SLFP’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s 2,289,860 (44.9%). The third candidate, Sri Lanka Mahajana Party’s Ossie Abeygunasekera polled 235,719 votes (4.6%).

With the assassination of President Premadasa on May 1, 1993, D. B. Wijetunga who was Prime Minister at the time was appointed President. Hailing from Udunuwara in the up-country, he had served in the Cooperative Department as an inspector from 1943 until he became private secretary to A. Ratnayake, Minister of Cooperative Undertakings in 1949. He was elected to Parliament as MP for Udunuwara in 1965.

Though he lost the 1970 election, he returned to Parliament in 1977 and was appointed Minister of Information & Broadcasting. One year later, he became Minister of Posts & Telecommunications. He became Prime Minister when R.Premadasa won the Presidential Election. He retired from the Presidency and active politics in November 1994 when Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga won the Presidential Election.

A 4.50 stamp was released on February 15, 2004 to mark his 82nd birthday which he spent quietly at his home in Pilimatalawa.

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