Plans to save billions on drugs

It was proposed that the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation should take immediate steps to begin the process of setting up at least 300 Osuhala outlets countrywide, to sell safe and good quality medicinal drugs at the lowest possible price.

The GMOA has told the Health Ministry that if the SPC does not have the resources or the commitment to do this, another State authority should be set up to implement this vital step.

It was also proposed that a drug information centre with a 24 hour hot line be set up to provide the correct information to people on how to buy safe and good quality drugs under generic names or low cost brand names. 

The third proposal was for an immediate review and rationalization of the Sri Lankan National Drug Formulary - the official list of all registered and tested medical drugs. The GMOA believes this is urgent because more than 10000 varieties of drugs - most of them under highly expensive brand names - are being imported to Sri Lanka and forced on patients . Estimates show that Sri Lanka spends about seven billion rupees a year in foreign exchange, for the import of these drugs. - thousands of them being unnecessary or non-essential. If a rational drug policy is adopted as proposed by the world famous pioneer Prof. Senaka Bibile, Sri Lanka could cut its drug import bill as much as four billion rupees in foreign exchange. 

GMOA Secretary Dr. Anuruddha Padeniya was among those who addressed Thursday's meeting. A doctor representing another health secctor union pointed out one example to show the colossal waste of the country's foreign exchange and how patients were being fooled or plundered. The widely used antibiotic amoxycillin is sold under its generic name for about Rs. 2 but as many as 80 different varieties of it are sold under different brand names at prices sometimes ranging up to Rs. 40 a tablet. He said that as in Britain the national drug list should allow a maximum of five varieties for each drug - generic name and four different brand names.

Fighting cocks and crestfallen cops

Marisa de Silva and Umangi de Mel.

The Special Investigation Operation Bureau of the Negombo police this week arrested 11 persons during the raid carried out in the Kochchikade area. Police said wealthy businessmen of the area had gathered there with their stakes on cock fights.

Cock fighting, a lucrative business, is the sole livelihood for some people. But police said cruel and inhuman methods had been adopted to train cocks.

Police said the fighting cocks are fed on turtle and iguana meat, eggs and various types of leaves on a rock slate to strengthen their bodies and beaks.

They are also given an oil massage and trained to answer particular names so that they could be egged on by their trainers during the fights.

Police also said before the fight began the gamblers used to bet on the victory of a particular cock. The owners of the bird would bet on it and the money would be paid only if it won. They said the organiser would get 10% of all the winning bets and pay off the owner of the winning cock with that money. The cock had to continue to fight until it found itself too weak to get up. Then the cock would be let out of the hatch or killed.

Police said about 200 people used to spend over Rs. 300,000 a day at the betting centres which were make-shift thatched huts on a little plot of land. They said one gambling centre had been organised by an underworld gang named "Gym Band."

Investigators said nobody came forward to complain about the betting centres as they were patronised by underworld gangs and powerful politicians. They said cock fighting was mainly prevalent in Kochchikade, Wennappuwa and Ja-ela areas.

THE PRESIDENCY

Choice between cohabitation and confrontation

Most people would have forgotten the date by now but today marks the sixth 'anniversary' — if it could be called that — of Chandrika Kumaratunga's promised deadline to the JVP to abolish the executive presidency. And by a curious irony, that controversial presidency is now embroiled in a constitutional quandary but if events in the recent past are anything to go by, Ms. Kumaratunga appears more determined than even J. R. Jayewardene himself to hold on to the reins of power. 

The one fact that emerges after nearly seven years of Ms. Kumaratunga's rule is that she may be everything that her opponents accuse her of: usually late, inefficient in governance, inconsistent with her promises, tactless in her verbal outbursts and unprincipled in her ideology but she is also — behind that charming smile — quintessentially a political animal and a ferocious predator at that. 

Just consider: Ms. Kumaratunga broke away from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party then led by her mother only to return to it when she found that her misadventures with the new fangled Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya and the Bahujana Nidahas Pakshaya were taking her nowhere. 

Of course, she had no qualms about upstaging younger sibling Anura who for many long years stoically led an eight-member opposition in Parliament. 

Then, it was the same Ms. Kumaratunga who provided an excellent photo opportunity, raising her clenched fist in a traditional leftist salute over the mortal remains of her slain husband Vijaya at Independence Square. She pledged to form a United Socialist Alliance and yet has had the temerity to preside over a government that begged the world's capitalists and robber barons to take over the country's vital assets — its airline, telecommunications, domestic gas supplies and much more; so much for an open economy with a 'human' face! 

Right now, Ms. Kumaratunga cries foul over J. R. Jayewardene's 'bahubootha' constitution and pledges to abolish it no sooner she gets a chance. Chances there have been many but Ms. Kumaratunga carries on regardless and uses every clause in it, be it good or bad, for her political advantage in a manner that would have had JR himself blushing. 

Does all this make Ms. Kumaratunga a good politician? Arguably, yes. Does it make her a good stateswoman? That is arguable indeed. If she glances at recent history she will recognise that for instance J. R. Jayewardene wins acclaim for his perhaps unparalleled political cunning but few would dare to rank him as a statesman par excellence. The President, being a graduate of the Sciences Po faculty of the Sorbonne — as authenticated by a one-time French Ambassador in Colombo — must surely know the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: "you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time". 

The President is of course no fool and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would confirm that but she now appears to be fooling with the democratic framework in a manner that makes her bona fides and her integrity — among her major assets in 1994 — suspect. 

The prorogation of Parliament, though everyone saw it coming, was a move to stave off certain defeat in the vote of no-confidence sponsored by the joint opposition. Ms. Kumaratunga could have let the motion pass and — under provisions in this 'bahubootha' constitution — called upon the party leader who could command a majority of the members of Parliament. In such a scenario, she could have remained the President and politically cohabited with Ranil Wickremesinghe as premier. That would not have been the end of the road because she could have always arrogated to herself many key ministries and a coalition as diverse as the UNP, the JVP, the SLMC and the TULF would have been prone to self-destruction anyway. 

But such an experiment was anathema to Ms. Kumaratunga. When the President miscalculated in the sacking of Rauf Hakeem — probably her worst political error yet — and realised that the going was tough, what she did was to let loose a process of informal consultation with the UNP. 

Ms. Kumaratunga was indeed fully aware and briefed about the progress of these 'informal' talks: between Anura Bandaranaike and Ranil Wickremesinghe on one side and Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and Ministers Lakshman Kadirgamar, G. L. Peiris and S. B. Dissanayake on the other, at different times and in different permutations over the past few weeks. 

Mr. Wickremesinghe was always obliging in these discussions. In talks with Mr. Bandaranaike and Mr. Dissanayake, the possibility of a government in which Mr. Wickremesinghe would be prime minister was broached while with Minister Kadirgamar the issue was a common front against the LTTE. 

With Prime Minister Wickre- manayake and Minister Peiris, the accent was on the creation of the independent commissions, so clamoured for by the UNP, the SLMC and the JVP. 

To his credit, Mr. Wickremesinghe, for all his cordiality and bon-homie displayed in these discussions, pressed on with the no-confidence motion, perhaps knowing well that his days as UNP leader could be numbered if he compromised on that issue. But it is clear, in hindsight, that President Kumaratunga wanted no truck with the UNP or Mr. Wickremesinghe. So it came to be that after Prime Minister Wickremanayake assured the UNP upon his "word of honour" that Parliament would not be prorogued, Ms. Kumaratunga did just that, with an ambiguous referendum thrown in for good measure. 

Ms. Kumaratunga's animosity for Wickremesinghe and the UNP is deep seated — though she says she knows him from his 'jungee' days, as Anura's playmate. After all, when Mr. Bandaranaike, having met Mr. Wickremesinghe on Monday, met his sister on Tuesday morning, the President told her brother nothing about what was in the offing, but instead was critical of Mr. Wickremesinghe.

At midnight that day, the President with her prorogation surprised not only her brother but also her cabinet, her party and her coalition partners. 

Poor 'mallo' heard the news only when UNP MP Mano Wijeratne called him while he was at home, having returned from a wedding reception. 

Ten out of ten then for surprise, but how much would this decision score on good governance? Can a head of state and a head of government be blinded by a pathological hatred towards a party which — despite all its misdemeanours — garnered a good 40 per cent of the vote? President Kumaratunga could have, for instance, invoked section 43 of the constitution to see whether any MP could command a majority of the House. 

What if she asked her brother to be the Prime Minister? Mallo would have demurred, shed a tear, spoken of a tryst with destiny, quoted Shakespeare — and accepted. Apart from the fact that it would have set another world record Anura Bandaranaike may have got the blessings of at least a section of the UNP — and split that party down the middle. 

But no, such fanciful exigencies did not appeal to Ms. Kumaratunga, not when the UNP had a slice of the cake. Then, in retrospect, is the President's vociferous grievance against the proportional representation (PR) system all that justified especially when it has protected not only the UNP but also the SLFP from extinction following the periodic mood swings of the electorate? 

Just as much as the President complains of the UNP winning only the Mahiyanganaya electorate in 1994, the SLFP too would have been decimated in 1989 if not for the PR system. Because of PR, they won a few dozen seats and formed a stable and vigilant opposition which was the stepping stone for it's success in 1994. 

The PR system has also given fringe parties a chance to savour national politics — and that is just what the JVP is doing. This protects against the use of extra-parliamentary methods and we must be sadder but wiser about the LTTE now after having seen it being shut out of a first-past-the-post system that favoured only the well-heeled Wellala caste TULF in Jaffna. 

Parliamentary democracies can and do bulldoze over the will of the people as Sri Lanka herself experienced in the seventies and eighties, but the world trend now is towards consensual politics. 

In India somehow a coalition of all sorts works without talking about changing constitutions as if it is the answer to all ills. And it is not that the UNP and the PA cannot find common ground — they do all rhetorically agree that the executive presidency should be abolished, though of course Rauf Hakeem may have a different view now. 

That abolition is not being done and the PA cannot fool all the people all the time: they in truth want it to continue because they are in office; it is as simple and selfish as that. 

The bottomline is that the executive presidency and the 1978 constitution still holds — despite the promised farcical referendum on August 21. And, under section 30(1) of that constitution, the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is not only the head of government — and head of the SLFP — he or she is also the head of state. 

Therefore, that person must represent all the people in that state, not some people. 

Because-to quote Lincoln again-true democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people; not government of some people, by some people, for some people.

Taking the country towards a constitutional nadir

Theodore J. Lowi, writing in 1985 on The Personal President might well have pro- jected his writings fifteen years ahead, taking Sri Lanka as the country study wholly proving his point. For out of the three presidencies that this country has been calamitously subject to since 1978, the Kumaratunga presidency most strikingly follows his tracing of how plebiscitory presidents (Heads of State who have the power of appealing directly to the people through a plebiscite or a referendum) self-destruct their own authority.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga seems irrevocably set on this course of self-destruction regardless of the little time that her extraordinary actions in the past weeks may have bought for the survival of her administration. For at least, the 1982 referendum had one clear purpose in mind, highly illegitimate though it was, namely the continuance of that legislative assembly. 

The proposed referendum in August 2001 (costing incidentally some rupees 500 million) is as confused as the political mind behind it. The question that is to be put before the people, namely whether they need a new constitution which is nationally important and an essential requirement, is compulsively redundant for this is the same nauseating question that this country had been asking and answering in the positive since 1994.

The question therefore is not whether this country needs a new constitution. Rather, the question that concerns us is what kind of constitution and the further question as to the manner of constitutional consensus in which it should be passed. 

Not the kind of questions, one would think, which could be answered by proroguing parliament when the government is in a minority, holding a referendum on a redundant question and then embarking on extra constitutional methods to bring about a new constitutional document.

This is precisely why one cannot have any sympathy for President Kumaratunga and her lament that the Jayewardene Constitution has tied her hands. For the reality is that if she had gone about her task of bringing in a new constitution with even an iota of sincerity that she professed in 1994, the country might have well been with her and her opposition politically negated. One remembers that the manifesto of the Peoples Alliance stated that upon being elected to form a Government, it shall convene a Constituent Assembly consisting of all MPs to formulate and adopt a new Constitution which will derive its force from the political will of the people.

Given the lamentable indecisiveness of the UNP then and now, this would not have been an impossible task. Instead, we had years of ineffective and mostly closed door discussions, culminating in the umpteenth draft constitution with its obnoxious transitional provisions ensuring that Ms. Kumaratunga function as prime minister as well as president. Attempts made to steamroll this draft through parliament and a suppliant Supreme Court failed last year. 

This year sees more of the same arrogance with even more dangerous implications for the stability of this country.

But let us take the PA's argument, justifying an extra constitutional reform in its most simplistic sense. In 1994, we saw the soon-to-be Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs G.L. Peiris basing the necessity to abolish the Executive Presidency on the impossibility of obtaining a two-thirds majority in parliament under the proportional representation system, turning instead to a legal revolution where a constitution may be supplanted by a manifestation of a popular will outside the framework of the existing constitution.

The precedents were well known, the most striking being in Zimbabwe (earlier Southern Rhodesia) after the Universal Declaration of Independence by the Ian Smith regime and in Pakistan after the overthrow of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the assumption of power by General Zia Ul Haque. At that time, the thinking was that the presidential elections could be converted to a referendum on the continuation of the Executive Presidency.

In the succeeding years, the justification remained the same but the focus shifted from the Executive Presidency to a whole constitution. Again, where earlier, the argument was more in terms of converting regular elections into referendums, now we have the bogey out in the open and the proposed holding of a referendum purely as a farcical step to extra constitutional reform. 

The fundamental objection to such a course of action needs no profound constitutional analysis; are we then to have new constitutions every time a government in power decides to hold a referendum or 'go to the people' in some other politically expedient way?

In that same sense, the August referendum is clearly illegitimate for the reason that though the constitution specifically states that the Executive President may submit before the people at a referendum any matter of national importance, constitutional amendments or the replacement of an entire constitution cannot be so placed in a manner bypassing Parliament. 

By flouting all these specific constitutional provisions in spirit if not in fact, President Kumaratunga has taken the country beyond the law and the constitution with potentially terrifying consequences.

Meanwhile, once the proclamation proroguing Parliament lapses on September 7, a variety of interesting situations may arise.

If the present political status quo continues, we will see the 1978 Constitution severely tested in a different sense with a President functioning vis a vis a hostile majority in Parliament even if Parliament is dissolved thereafter in October. 

Much would depend on what resources and strength the joint opposition would be able to marshall during this intervening month where the context is bound to be markedly different to what prevailed in 1994 when a retiring D. B. Wijetunge faced with a hostile Kumaratunga-dominated Parliament opted for non-confrontation.

In the current background, the possibility of bringing about some consensus on the draft constitution would be more impossible than ever. 

If then, the PA resorts to passing the draft constitution with a simple majority, we would then have finally reached the collective nadir of our constitutional being. 

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