Sunday Times 2
Reminiscing Liberal Party’s campaign for constitutional and electoral reforms
Chanaka Amaratunga was born on April 19, 1958. He had his early education at S. Thomas’ Prep School, Kollupitiya and later at S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia. Chanaka was an alumnus of Oxford University and the London School of Economics. His area of study was Political Science and International Relations, yet he had an interest in History, English Drama and Literature.
One of the major political events that had taken place in 1980 was the deprivation of civic rights of the then leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and parliamentary opposition, Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Early liberals including Chanaka were conscious of this unjustifiable use of power by the J.R Jayewardene administration and it generated a number of discussions among themselves culminating in the formation of the Council for Liberal Democracy (CLD) in March 1981.
Chanaka initially identified himself politically with the United National Party (UNP) and at the time when Mrs. Bandaranaike was deprived of her civic rights, he had been placed in New York as a member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the United Nations. It is believed that Chanaka had written to Mr. Jayawardene expressing his opposition to the move. However the turning point of his political life was the announcement by the UNP government after the 1982 Presidential election that instead of having a Parliamentary election by August 1983 they would seek to extend the life of Parliament elected in 1977 for six years beyond the term for which it was elected. Mr. Jayawardene was planning a referendum to postpone the general election that was due in 1983.
Chanaka broke ranks with the UNP and canvassed against the ill-fated referendum with his CLD colleagues.
The main themes of the CLD at the time were promotion of the liberty of the individual, human rights and constitutional reforms. The need to promote a market economy and provide an intellectual basis for a worldview that was opposed to the socialist world view that was prevalent among many Sri Lankan intellectuals was also given priority.
After the referendum the CLD under Chanaka developed a political stand against constitutional manipulation and authoritarianism and after July 1983 a serious effort was made to formulate a policy to resolve the national question. The CLD canvassed for opposition candidates of 18 by- elections held in May 1983 and Kundasale and Minneriya by-elections in 1984.
In 1986 Chanaka returned to Sri Lanka and at CLD committee meetings the idea to form a political party based on liberal ideology was extensively discussed. The culmination was the formation of Liberal Party on January 19, 1987.
Since the inception of the Liberal Party the agitation for constitutional reforms had been a main theme. During the latter part of the 1980′s, no organization or political party was that interested in political reforms and I think one reason was that the rule under Emergency regulations was the norm after the July 1983riots proscribing some political parties and the suppression of the TULF by constitutional manipulation.
Liberal Party seminars, discussions, workshops were mainly conducted in five-star environments and many political intellectuals and party leaders were assembled to speak on reforms. Chanaka was instrumental in preparing the election manifesto of the Democratic People’s Alliance led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike and he was nominated to Parliament through the National List of the SLFP alliance. However the alliance was unable to win the elections and as there were limited places for the National List he was not in the Parliament in 1988.
After the election the Liberal Party again launched its constitutional reform movement and persisted until his untimely death in 1996.
The idea of independent commission first initiated by him at the All Party Conference convened by President R. Premadasa in the 1990′s and later United National Party and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna(JVP) in opposition guided the amendment in Parliament as the 17th amendment to the Constitution under the Chandrika Kumaratunga presidency.
I recollect a debate between Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha and Dr. Chanaka Amaratunga in 1995 on the national question at Deans Road, Colombo 10, organized by Fr. Tissa Balasooriya. After nearly eight years of that debate Ven. Maduluwaewe Sobitha Thero spearheaded the constitutional reform movement in Sri Lanka. Chanaka’s constitutional reform movement was restricted to the upper middle class with English speaking backgrounds.
If Chanaka had lived up to present he would have unhesitatingly opposed the 18th Amendment and definitely supported the 19th Amendment as clarified by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.
With regard to electoral reforms his stand was that the German mixed system would be the best for Sri Lanka. It is common knowledge that a mandate is given to President Maithripala Sirisena in 2015 for constitutional reforms. The essence of the mandate is to appoint the independent commissions, reintroducing the two term presidency with a mixed system of elections.
During the 2015 presidential election campaign two views whether to abolish the executive presidency or to reform the presidency were discussed. Chanaka had maintained that the Westminster model as witnessed in United Kingdom is more successful as there is a monarchy in the UK as head of state. Sri Lanka, in the absence of a monarchy and as a republic, should maintain an elected presidency as head of state as in USA and France. According to Chanaka the error made by J.R. Jayewardene was that he created an executive presidency investing both executive powers as in USA & France and ceremonial and hereditary powers of the British monarchy on the 1978 presidency.
(The writer is Secretary General of the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka)