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| Sunday, 21 March 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Manifestos: all about unfinished business Brief by LALITH EDRISINHA It is the interregnum when the people who have been cowering under the glare and blare of the pompous politico are able to assert themselves once again albeit for a short time as the campaigners parade their testimonials in public to bargain for a mandate to serve them. A country that has adopted this most valued and vaguest concept of all political systems embodying 'demos' and 'kratos' has no choice but to put up with attendant aberrations one of which is the election manifesto that is seldom adhered to and what is worse, still rarely read by the populace! The UNP is asking for a stronger mandate to finish unfinished business. there is so much hype about the business deals of some in that political party, done during a relatively short two years that others may want to follow suit and the mandate called for is to round off all that unfinished business that the late developers and slow learners have mapped out or is it that they were taken unawares when the curtain came down prematurely on February 07? A peep into past manifestos can set the record straight. In 1977, the UNP asked for a mandate to solve the problems of the Tamil speaking people. 'The lack of solution to their problems has made the Tamil speaking people support even a movement for the creation of a separate state...' But what happened in actual practice? In a planned attack to humble political opponents the election victory of the UNP was celebrated islandwide. Tamils too were exposed to mob violence which served as a foretaste of what was to follow in later years. It is now well-known that elements within that government orchestrated the program in 1983 that traumatised the Tamil people and stigmatised the Sinhalese as cannibals. But times have changed and two decades have rolled by. today the UNP has set itself up as the sole harbinger of peace among communities and calls for a mandate to finish the unfinished business that peace was for some, while the vast majority of the people waited expectantly to reap their share of the peace dividend that never came their way. Constitutional amendment has become a hot topic today. Then in 1977 there was no loud mouthed campaigning for it but the UNP manifesto did say that 'Executive power will be vested in a President elected from time to time...' There was no mention of tinkering with the electoral process that has today rendered the abrogation of that Constitution a Herculean task. What was done then by sleight of hand as it were exploiting the massive majority with which that government was returned was to enthrone a system for which no mandate was asked nor given. Dr. Colvin R. de Silva put it very succinctly when he said: 'Mr. Jayewardene want into the 1977 general election asking to be made the Prime Minister of the country. The voters overwhelmingly gave him his request. But elect him President they did not. He did not ask it and he could not ask it. All he did was to declare that he would change the Constitution to provide for a President with executive powers who would be elected by popular vote...' So, while an executive presidential system was on offer in the UNP Manifesto of 1977 it neither spelt out the way nor did it make any reference to tampering with the electoral process that has rendered amendment or abrogation of the Constitution a mere dream. The People's Alliance (PA) manifesto of 1994 set a new trend in the preamble of that manifesto. In a commendable exercise in self criticism it said 'Those of us the constituent parties of the Alliance who were partners in the United Front Government of 1970-1977 are not ashamed to admit our mistakes and errors of judgement...' Constitutional reform received wide coverage in that policy statement. But the People's Alliance did not set up a Constituent Assembly to amend the Constitution. Instead after years of deliberation the PA government presented a draft Constitution in 2000 which is even today the most comprehensive attempt at Constitutional reform, that was shot down in Parliament by the UNP on the eve of a general election. Today, extra constitutional means of ridding the country of an obnoxious Constitution has been set out in the UPFA election manifesto where the Alliance is calling for a mandate for elected representatives to Parliament to set themselves up as a Constituent Assembly to usher in constitutional reform adhering also to the requirement of a Referendum and Judicial review. This time round the people are alert to the presence of the JVP in the UPFA to be tested for the first time with a mandate for shared governance. Expectations are high that they mean business and are sure showing signs of attending to unfinished business that successive governments have left undone. Those who cried 'a plague on both houses' are rallying round reminiscent of the great upheaval of 1956 to salvage the country from the throes of a deep economic, political and cultural crisis as set out in the UPFA manifesto. |
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