Editorial

22nd October 2000

Reach out to all

What has been happening since October 10 would make any right-thinking citizen throw up. The conduct of National Unity Alliance leader Rauf Hakeem in reportedly demanding ministerial and deputy ministerial posts, and local and international jobs is contemptible and deserves the condemnation of the nation.

We saw him holding the President to ransom right up to the last moment before swearing-in ceremonies - bargaining, bargaining and bargaining with his four seats to form a Government.

Eventually, the President appears to have out-smarted him though the NUA has not given up, now reportedly demanding five deputy ministerial posts. But the President has ended up with a Cabinet of 44, a world record with at least four more including three former chief ministers also pressing for portfolios which means we might hit the half century. Add to this the Deputy Ministers, Provincial Ministers, Provincial Councillors , Municipal Councillors and Pradeshiya Sabha members. One should imagine Sri Lanka to be the best example of representative democracy if not for the plunder and pillage of public funds to maintain all these politicians with a multitude of staff, vehicles, privileges and running into monies this country cannot afford.

During the week since election results were announced, and the widely-expected hung parliament became known, the haggling by two smaller ethnic oriented parties, NUA and EPDP and the melodramatic happenings within the ethnic Sihala Urumaya made the country see the folly of ethnic political parties. The need to break away from the mind-set of ethnic politics and even parochial party politics is becoming clearer now.

President Kumaratunga needs to realise that more than 50% of the voters have not voted for her Government, and that the October 10 election made a mockery of the electoral process. The votes or seats the PA received were coloured by the gross mis-use of power and disturbances caused on polling day which the President appears not to want to look at. Besides others, some of the victors at Kayts and Kandy obviously have no right to their seats in this parliament. Those seats were illegally and illegitimately obtained with military deserters and gangs involved in the violence, intimidation and ballot-stuffing.

If she intends being the President of the PA government so be it. But if she wants to be President of Sri Lanka she must stretch out to the whole country. For example she could implement proposals that have common acceptance by all parties and people. Immediately she could act to set up the independent police commission, independent election commission and independent public service commission for which there is overwhelming public support.

While it is fashionable to talk of new constitutions why are we reluctant to look back towards a time when these institutions were free from political interference, the executive committee system of Government which drew in all parties towards the administration of the country and other avenues of rectifying what politicians have done to this country over the past 50 years.

The President needs to rise above the cacophony, to see the wood from the trees, to list her own Government and the nation from the acrimony and bad blood between the people on ethnic, religious and party lines.

There are those who are calling for the formation of a national government of sorts and those like the NUA and EPDP who don't want such consensus among major parties.

Today we have a government that is mortgaged to small parties, a captive of a hung parliament and a prisoner of the nation's mandate.

Does the President want to galvanise the whole country to back her in defeating the LTTE and revive the stagnant economy ? Or does she want to remain in office as the head of a PA Government, and in fact a minority Government and go on the same road that has left Sri Lanka on the wayside as one of the poorest nations in the world.

The Political Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents