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| Sunday, 30 November 2003 |
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Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 1 429239 / 331181 Fax : 94 1 429230 Dual mandate 'The power struggle between the two leaders has resulted in the de-stabilisation of the state and the peace process has come to a standstill,' LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran observed in his annual Martyr's Day speech last week, referring to the political stand-off between the Presidency and the Government. It is not necessary for the head of a movement that has fought the Sri Lankan State to point out the State's current fragility. Sri Lankans are already acutely aware of the emasculation of the State caused by the on-going crisis in governance due to the stand-off between the Presidency and the Government. Most Sri Lankans are aghast and appalled at the lengths their political leaders are prepared to go in risking the stability of the State and the democratic ethos of Sri Lankan society. The citizenry has long watched how national political problems have worsened into national crises as the two main political parties to alternate in Government, the United National Party and the People's Alliance, and earlier, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, have overlooked the needs of the nation in preference to short-term political gain and inter-party rivalry. Whichever party has been elected to Government so far has demonstrated the same basic intent: a clinging to exclusive configurations of political power and partisan advantage. That is why the citizenry thought it fit to give a popular mandate for governance to both, hitherto rival, political parties by electing one to the Government and the other to the Presidency. It is imperative, in the larger interests of the nation in its time of division and adversity, that the political parties with claims to national governance take serious and active cognisance of the reality of a dual electoral mandate from the people. It has long been known that a purely confrontational dynamic between these two political formations simply cannot provide the basis for any action to reform the Sri Lanka polity in order to end its biggest problem - the ethnic conflict. It is the failure to transcend the inter-party confrontation that has led to the current stand-off between the Presidency and the Government. Right now, a joint committee is discussing and preparing a formula for future co-operation between these two most important institutions of the State. That formula's success will depend on how far it ensures the parity between the UNP-held Government and the PA-held Presidency on the basis of the equally powerful electoral mandates they both have received. Any attempt to tilt the balance in favour of either party will only obstruct the process of reconciliation and delay the return to that political stability the loss of which Mr. Prabhakaran has noted. And the LTTE has gone on to warn of the inevitable if the political crisis continues and the peace process fails to resume: a collapse of confidence in the face of continued immense suffering by the people of the North East and a possible slide towards secession. Can this prospect of renewed conflict and disintegration at regional level compel some reasoned action at the centre of our polity? Terror in Palestine Everyday the military might of Israel continues to wreak terror and social havoc throughout the miniscule strips of land that are all that remain of the territory of the Palestinian people. In the name of 'security' a further horror is now being perpetrated: Palestinian homeland areas already divided by Israeli strategic roadways and fortified settlements, are now being cut through by the new 'security wall' being built ostensibly to protect the Israeli nation proper from Palestinian militant resistance. But the human cost of this latest social atrocity can only generate further militancy rather than reduce it. Both sides will continue to suffer until the Israeli establishment acknowledges the realities of human needs and aspirations for justice. |
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