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15th July 2001
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CBK inviting more trouble

By Victor Ivan
The executive presidential system can be a convenient way of administration only if the holder of that post is supported by a majority in parliament. President J. R. Jayewardene was able to govern with no challenge from parliament because he had a five sixths majority in the legislature.

President Ranasinghe Premadasa had to face an impeachment though he had an absolute majority. Mr. Premadasa overcame the impeachment challenge not because he was an extremely efficient and powerful ruler but because there was no real basis to that motion of impeachment. 

The then speaker, who apparently had a difference of opinion with Mr. Premadasa and reportedly backed the move to impeach the President, accepted the impeachment motion which did not even have the required number of signatures.

Although the impeachment motion had no basis and President Premadasa was a powerful ruler, it pushed him to a crisis situation. Mr. Premadasa was able to thwart the move, but the attempt to impeach him made a dent in the presidential system. 

President Wijetunga, began his presidency like a liberal ruler rather than a tough one, in spite of the enormous powers vested in the office he held. 

The PA's victory at the 1994 parliamentary election was marginal, but President Wijetunga did not want to clash with the PA and he adopted a non-confrontational approach a policy of co-habitation. He permitted the PA government to do whatever it liked. If president Wijetunga, without following such a liberal policy, had tried to take into his hands several ministries or tried to nominate several person to the cabinet from outside the PA on the grounds that it was he who had the power to appoint the cabinet under the constitution, a big confrontation between the parliament and the presidency would have been inevitable.

President Kumaratunga got less support from parliament in comparison to her predecessors.

Facing such a reality, she should have adopted the Wijetunga approach. But what we witness today an approach that is more autocratic, tough and oppressive than that of J. R. Jayewardene who had functioned with a five sixths majority in parliament.

Even a crossover by an insignificant number of MPs could tilt the balance of power in parliament. She represented not a party but an alliance of several parties. Thus the chances of the government losing the majority in parliament are greater under coalition rule than under one-party rule. To survive under these conditions, a policy trusted by and acceptable to all in the coalition is necessary. It is also necessary to conduct an administration that would have earned the trust and respect of opposition parties to avoid a great pressure from outside. However the President failed to adopt such a disciplined approach suited to that reality.

Her policy towards the opposition parties was confrontational and her control of cabinet ministers and the members of her party was autocratic. Thus there has always been some kind of bickering to be heard in the PA ranks. The main items in the political agenda that brought her to power were the abolition of the executive presidency, the strengthening of democracy and the ushering in of peace. Leave alone fulfilling these promises, Ms. Kumaratunga apparently did not even make an honest attempt towards that end, though she would speak on the need to achieve these goals.

Before she came to office, she spoke of the executive presidential system with great contempt; but after she came to office she started enjoying the fruits of the power associated with that office. Instead of widening the democratic scope, she followed a policy of curtailing it. The greatest political crime she committed was to allow the democratic process of selecting peoples' representatives to develop into a one that was tarnished by fraud and violence. Instead of using skilfully the opportunities that had available for solving the ethnic problem she followed a policy of developing racist alignments in the country. She must have thought that as long as she had in her hands the powers of the executive presidential system, the position is safe. However her assessment was not correct.

The imprudent policy she followed with regard to Rauf Hakeem at a time when a crisis had arisen in relation to the impeachment motion against the chief justice and the stay order given by the judiciary against that motion, led to a great change in the balance of forces in parliament and turned the government party into a minority and the opposition into a majority. 

It set the stage for a massive conflict between the executive and the legislature.

If the president had been a wise leader who accepted democratic values, what she should have done in such a situation was to accept the reality and to allow the opposition which had become a majority to form a government, and to co-operate with such a government as President Wijetunga had done. If that had happened, the crisis might not have developed into a massive conflict between parliament and the President.

On the contrary, she, at a time when there was no unanimity even within the PA and the opposition had given notice of a motion of no confidence, she prorogued parliament without even informing her entire cabinet. In an apparent bid to cover up factors that led to it, she has taken up a discourse about a referendum.

This amounts to the president inviting an impeachment against her. Not only the opposition but also a great majority of the government party do not like the dissolution of parliament. 

In such circumstances the parliament will inevitably be pushed towards moving an impeachment motion against the President in its own interests. It would not be difficult for the opposition to get the required number of signatures for impeachment .

The impeachment motion against President Premadasa shook the presidential system seriously although the minimum number of signatures was not available. A motion of impeachment which has the signatures of two thirds of the MPs will inevitably lead to more disastrous consequences.

The writer is the editor of Ravaya


Clinically Yours by Dr. Who

The powerless grin and bear 

Power tends to corrupt, said someone, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If that is indeed the case, then power cuts should tend to cut corruption, right?

Wrong of course, if power happens to be distributed by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). But even as the Board plunges the country into scattered segments of one and a half hours of darkness each night inviting burglars- and probably a baby boom nine months from now- this whole power cuts business becomes curiouser and curiouser.

Remember those last power cuts in 1996 or thereabouts, when Power and Energy Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte went on his honeymoon plunging the entire country into darkness because of a CEB strike?

When that issue was settled at long last General Ratwatte said that this was all the result of improper planning by the previous UNP regime. When the PA was done with its power generation projects, vowed the General, there will be no more power cuts, ever. So, the General got it wrong. Now that's hardly surprising because he is the man who promised to shake hands with Prabhakaran after ending the war before the Sinhala New Year, some years ago. Let's say we excuse him for this blunder too but that is not the end of the story.

During the 1996 power crisis, CEB engineers took pains to explain that even that crisis could have been averted had their advice and suggestions been adhered to. Bureaucrats, for reasons best known to themselves, disregarded the suggestions made by the professionals, they said.

Come 2001 and there is a sense of déjà vu. Just last week, CEB engineers told the media the same thing: there were detailed plans worked out that covered every eventuality, including the lack of rain and there would have been no power cuts if those plans were implemented- but somebody thought otherwise. And they also stated what must now be the obvious: this can happen all over again!

The question is, where do we go from here? Do we just grin and bear it, candles, mosquito coils and all? Or do we file a fundamental rights case demanding electricity for all 24 hours of the day? Or, do we simply curse the ancestors of the General and wait for the lights to come on?

Can a few bungling- or conniving or corrupt, as the case may be- officials at the CEB deprive 19 million people of electricity for 90 minutes every day for a second time in five years? If the answer to that is 'no', what can the masses do about it?

Someone said that if President Premadasa was in charge, he would have at least got artificial rain over the catchment areas. Of course President Chandrika Kumaratunga is worried these days that her power will be cut, so she has no time to think about the power cuts of us lesser mortals. Even if she had she probably would say that this was all the conspiracy of a UNP MP who owned a candle factory.

So, we settle for the 'grin and bear it' option, what with floodlit cricket thrown in for good measure. 

Or if you are not the sporting kind, you could always read the Bible by candlelight: "And God said, 'let there be light' and there was light." God hadn't created the CEB at that time!


Musharraf in India for landmark summit

NEW DELHI, Saturday - Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf arrived in India today for summit talks that carry dwindling hopes of any substantial progress in easing more than 50 years of mutual hostility.

The run-up to the summit has been marked by a hardening of stances on both sides over the crucial issue of Kashmir — the decades-old territorial dispute that has dogged relations and triggered two full-scale wars since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

Musharraf's plane touched down in New Delhi at 8:20am (0250 GMT) at the beginning of what will be a three-day visit.

Immediately after his arrival, the general — wearing an all-white traditional long coat called a sherwani — was whisked away in a bullet-proof limousine for an official welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace, attended by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The two leaders, who will be meeting face-to-face for the first time since Musharraf seized power in a military coup in October 1999, will move to the Taj Mahal town of Agra on Sunday for the first Indo-Pakistan summit in more than two years.

Musharraf arrived with a 15-member official delegation, including Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar.

Following the welcoming ceremony, Musharraf will lay a wreath at the Rajghat memorial to India's independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, before holding short meetings with Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Home Minister L.K. Advani.

After a lunch hosted by Vajpayee, Musharraf will visit the house in Old Delhi where he spent his childhood before he moved to the newly created Pakistan during the turmoil of partition.

His next appointment will be a "tea party" at the Pakistani High Commission, which has infuriated New Delhi by inviting leaders of Kashmir's main separatist alliance to meet the Pakistani leader.

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