The issue of the proposed 22nd Amendment to the constitution which cast doubt about the holding of the presidential election in view of its requirement of a referendum and focus on the length of the president’s term of office has hopefully been dealt with. In his recent speech while opening the judicial complex in Galle, President Ranil Wickremesinghe went out of his way to assure his distinguished audience including judges of the Supreme Court of his commitment to democratic norms. He demonstrated his responsiveness to the concerns that have arisen from the 22nd Amendment which his own Minister of Justice Wijayadasa Rajapakshe sought to shelve until after the presidential election is held due to the concerns it had generated.
The president said that “The upcoming election is on schedule, with the Chief Justice and the Supreme Court confirming that it should be held within the specified time frame, and we support this directive.”
He thereby emphasized that the purpose of the controversial 22nd Amendment he has proposed is benign and good for democracy in Sri Lanka. The president also gave his own interpretation of a constitutional defect as being due to poor constitutional drafting that that the 22nd Amendment is meant to cure. This interpretation has been hotly contested by the drafters. In addition, this defect has been cured by the Supreme Court on more than one occasion when it has decided that the president’s term is five years and not six.
The use of the referendum in the Sri Lankan constitution is mainly to protect against human rights violations, in particular the prohibition of torture and the freedom of thought, conscience and religion and usurpations of the people’s sovereignty. The 22nd Amendment is meant to cure the defect whereby some clauses (those revised by the 19th Amendment) have it that the president’s term is five years, whilst in another place it is six years as originally intended. But the amendment is clearly unnecessary as the Supreme Court has cured the defect through its interpretations. The requirement for the exercise of a referendum if the 22nd Amendment is passed by parliament with the requisite 2/3 majority is additionally liable to have negative implications for the country’s economic progress due to its cost factor.
Student Protests
President Wickremesinghe’s affirmation that the presidential election would be held on schedule is also important because it corresponds to the democratic ethos in the country. In his speech in Galle, the president also said, “In Sri Lanka, power transitions take place smoothly and without conflict after elections, it is a testament to the strength of our democratic process. Despite various debates and issues, democracy has never been compromised.” Since the economic collapse of 2022 and the rise of the Aragalaya protest movement, people have been awaiting elections. The Aragalaya protests succeeded in driving out the former president and his government through street power. But in a democratic society it is necessary to seek change of government peacefully and democratically, which through elections.
The danger of people taking to the streets when faced with a situation of injustice they see as perpetrated by the government is illustrated by the ongoing crisis in Bangladesh where more than a hundred young people, mostly university students, have lost their lives. Under Sheikh Hasina’s government, the Bangladesh economy has been growing rapidly to the extent that it was able to lend Sri Lanka a sum of USD 200 million to stave off its severe shortage for foreign exchange at the height of the economic crisis. But economic growth is not the only thing that people want or will be satisfied with. They also want that economic growth to be distributed equitably throughout society, and not be confined to a few sections of the population. They also want justice.
Students in Bangladesh have demanded an end to a quota that reserved 30 percent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. In 2018 the government under pressure from the general public withdrew this quota which was brought back this year through a judicial verdict. The Supreme Court has now reduced that quota and ordered that the veterans’ share be cut to 5 percent, with 93 percent of jobs to be allocated on merit. The remaining 2 percent will be set aside for members of ethnic minorities and transgender and disabled people. Under President Wickremesinghe’s government, the people have overcome the worst of the economic crisis in the form of shortages but the question is whether the people will be content with this alone. They also want justice and an adherence to democratic norms.
Mistrust High
The level of mistrust in society is demonstrably high. This accounts for the persistence of doubts about the conduct of the presidential election despite the president asserting that elections will be held and the election commission confirming that it will be held. This pressure is being felt by the Election Commission is so much that they have complained that they had asked for 20 billion rupees to organise the presidential elections and the local or provincial council elections, if not parliamentary elections, that are likely to follow. But they have only received 10 billion rupees, which is the estimated cost of the presidential election, and if a referendum has to take place in advance of the presidential election, there will be a need for a similar sum of money. President Wickremesinghe who gives priority to economic recovery would be mindful of these issues and their impact on the national interest.
The ongoing discussion in the Tamil majority northern and eastern provinces is about a common Tamil candidate rather than one of the national candidates which reflects their loss of trust in the electoral process. They feel their concerns are not taken into account by the leaders of government who cater first to those that vote for them who come predominantly from the ethnic majority community. It is clearly visible off the main roads and in the rural areas of the north and east that development is behind that of other areas even 15 years after the end of war. There are words of promise including that of the implementation in whole or in part of the 13th Amendment but all these promises are still in the air awaiting implementation after almost 37 years. The people of the north and east do not feel included in the process of policy formulation and decision making, and so they prefer to demand their own government in the north and east and have it based on federal principles of devolution of power.
In these circumstances where the people of the country, whether in the north, east, west or south do not have much trust in their political leaders on even a fundamental issue, such as the holding of free and fair elections, then it becomes unrealistic to expect foreigner investors to place their trust in these same leaders. They will be concerned that their investments will be taken away from them in the same manner in which government leaders might take away the democratic rights of the people. A brief perusal of the history of other countries that developed rapidly is that their governments had plans and policies in place that were followed and which did not vary from time to time to fit the changing interests of the political leaders too often to benefit themselves politically or economically.
Jehan Perera
