An international political threat directed at President Mahinda Rajapaksa:

Joint Opposition one big holy mess:

Joint Opposition turns into ‘advocates’ of good governance - Dr.Sarath Amunugama

By Uditha Kumarasinghe

Senior Minister for International Monetary Cooperation and Deputy Finance and Planning Minister Dr.Sarath Amunugama said that the 'good governance' talk was not genuine in the least.

We have to confront this as an international political threat directed at President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Because they want to make an example of him. The Minister in an interview with the Sunday Observer said "While we are all for good governance, we should not be foolish enough to take this slogan seriously and destabilise our country".

Dr.Amunugama said, "What we are really seeing is not a contest with President Rajapaksa but a contest within the joint Opposition as to what their policy will be. In that case, they should have changed their policies earlier".

It is clear that they can come together only on one issue- that they must get rid of President Rajapaksa. That is their only issue. How will they get rid of President Rajapaksa? They can't talk about agriculture, health or the parliamentary system. That is why they are bringing good governance into the picture.

In my experience, everyone of the joint Opposition is responsible for bad governance. Now all of a sudden, they have become advocates of good governance. This has to be taken not with a pinch of salt but with an ocean of salt.

Q: Good governance and law and order are the hot topics for the Opposition in the current Presidential race. Do you observe any social ills or vices warranting such accusations?

A: Good governance is a new slogan put forward by the West to create a platform for their own agendas regarding developing countries. We know that relationships with developing countries and socialist countries is a matter for research and policy making in the West.

The West had a huge problem about the Middle East. To find a western solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, they started with the idea that independent Arab countries should be brought down

For example, the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria, earlier Saddam Hussein in Iraq and then Islamic establishments in Iran, except for a few countries like Jordan which were client states American policy makers decided that the leadership of these countries should be brought down to create a less threatening situation for Israel

They feel that if the Arab neighbors are weakened and make vulnerable, then their policy initiatives regarding Israel, oil and weapons can be realised.

Succeeding with this theory, in spite of the tremendous misery they have created in the Arab world, they are now trying this out in other countries as well.

If you look at the havoc caused in the Middle East by these so called good governance policy, tens of thousands of perfectly innocent men, women and children have been slaughtered

Big cities have been bombed and Arab culture has been brought to near extinction. So what we are now seeing is not genuine talk about good governance.

We have to confront this as an international political threat which is directed at President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Because they want to make an example of him. While we are all for good governance, we should not be foolish enough to take that slogan as a means to destabilise our country.

What is the good governance you have when there is a war situation? During the war on terrorism, there were no rules and regulations. People were killed by the LTTE like dogs on the streets.

The separatists had their own legal system, courts, lawyers and sentencing system. What is the good governance? When the JVP insurrection took place, J.R. Jayewardena said that every Member of Parliament of the UNP should function like a Superintendent of Police.

Because under Emergency laws, anybody who was a SP or above could dispose of bodies without any legal consequences.

We are talking of a country which has emerged from a bloodiest 30 years of terrorist war. Now all those who tolerated that or didn't lift even a finger when the LTTE virtually created another state and their own law and order are now talking about good governance.

We are now at a transitional stage. After 30 years, the country has emerged victorious. We have to give time to establish those positions.

Correct path

I don't think if you look at the total picture, it would be wise for us to pick on one or two instances and use that as a weapon to destabilise a country which is now going on the correct path. The Opposition are using this slogan with malicious intent to derail the country.

Q: What do you think of the just political line for the Tamils and Muslims in the larger interest of the country rather than holding sectarian political views?

A: This attack on Mahinda Rajapaksa's Government is not a haphazard effort. It is a well-planned and well funded effort.

They have assessed that the first step is to detach the minorities from the Government.

All these minority groups were in the Government and benefited from the perks and privileges that accrued to them.

At the last moment, they are moving out because of a pre-arranged agenda. I don't think they are serving the interest of the minority population.

Regarding Rauff Hakeem's and Bathiudeen's parties, we have to remember that while they may be a majority in certain areas in the East.

The Muslims are a minority in the rest of the country, in the North and the South. The LTTE with the connivance of pro-LTTE Tamils chased away the Muslims. Many of them came with only what they were dressed in.

By doing this, they created a lot of ill-will for the Muslims in the other areas who have been the transitional partners of the Sinhalese or Tamils and we were working towards a reconciliation.

In every Sinhala and Tamil area, the Muslim leadership is opportunistic and that is not healthy for the Muslims.

The Muslims face a dilemma. While they are a majority in some parts of the East, they are a minority in other parts.

To get votes from the East and Vavuniya, these parties have sacrificed Muslims in other areas and jeopardised them.

Muslim perspective

From the Muslim perspective, it is only President Rajapaksa who got a Muslim namely Abdul Majeed as the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province.

But for the President's initiative to separate the North and the East provinces, never would a Muslim ever sit in a Provincial Council Chairman's chair.

The UNP, TNA and many of that component parties within Maithripala Sirisena's coalition are the people who are undecided whether the North and the East should be joined.

The late President Jayewardena said that they will be temporarily joined. But he didn't have a referendum to decide whether this should be temporary or permanent.

The UNP is committed to temporarily join them. The TNA is dead against joining them. They want a Northern and Eastern province.

on the other hand, the JHU is dead against that. They want to have Provincial Councils and they are attacking the concept of Provincial Councils. Some parts of the SLFP that joined them don't know what the policy is regarding Provincial Councils.

Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga wanted to give more powers to the Provincial Councils. This is one big unholy mess and they cannot come to a common decision on that.

On the question of devolution, the Sri Lankan voter must appreciate the role of President Rajapaksa. He solved one of the biggest problems in the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka. There were two issues on the question of devolution.

One was the unit of devolution and the other was the powers to be devolved. With regard to the unit of devolution, there was a huge debate whether it should be joined or separation.

Under the tenure of President Rajapaksa, the court decided that it should be separated. Then he took a bold decision to hold elections in the North and the East.

The people of the North and the East were asked and they responded to the two province solution which is now the law of Sri Lanka.

The Eastern and Northern Province Elections were contested by the UPFA, UNP, TNA and the SLMC.

The President has now solved one problem, the unit of devolution.

This Opposition has not got a unified solution to this. What the UNP says is different from what the TNA says. What the TNA says is different from the SLMC. What the SLMC says is different from the JHU. So it is a mishmash.

They cannot evolve a common policy to the biggest problem in Sri Lanka, the ethnic problem.

Defeat of terrorism has been successfully done. Now the challenge is to find an acceptable solution by way of devolution.

The President will set up a Parliamentary committee to find out what can be devolved only in terms of powers.

The President has gone far to solve this problem. I want to tell these so- called intellectuals in Sri Lanka, if Sirisena is elected, there will be total chaos regarding the ethnic policy in this country.

Now it is only a case of Police and land powers to be negotiated. India is helping us to find a solution. We are going on a correct path of trying to resolve the ethnic issue while these parties were alive because of the ethnic issue. Now they don't want a solution and they want to join Sirisena and create chaos in the country.

Q: What kind of political future do you visualise for this country under a hotch-potch of political and communal affiliations of the New Democratic Front (NDF) Presidential Candidate Maithripala Sirisena?

A: At present the NDF has only thought of 100 days. Because its leaders know very well that it won't last more than 100 days. Their policies are so contradictory. It is attractive to the so-caled intellectuals who have returned from the West who have never done a honest job in their lives.

Retirement patriots

Many of them are university lecturers, dentists and various other characters who have returned to Sri Lanka after retirement. They are 'retirement patriots'.

Till they reached the age of retirement, they never thought of Sri Lanka and were earning money and educating their children abroad. Now they have returned to Sri Lanka and feel that they can market themselves as patriots in the Opposition.

They have dreams of sending messages back to their places in US, UK , Germany or France. This is nonsense that is going on. They cannot go beyond 100 days. I will be surprised if it goes even up to a 100 days.

Now we can see that the JHU has broken off saying that they cannot work with this coalition. One or two of their signatories have now rejoined President Rajapaksa.

Other parties are also losing their numbers because there are two contradictory views. What we are seeing is not a contest with President Rajapaksa but a contest from within as to what the policy will be.

In that case, they should have changed their policies earlier

It is clear that they can come together only on one issue that they must get rid of Mahinda Rajapaksa. That is their only issue. How could they get rid of Mahinda Rajapaksa?

Bad governance

Because they can't talk about agriculture, health or the parliamentary system. So they are bringing this idea of good governance.

In my experience, everyone of them in the political arena is responsible for bad governance. Now all of a sudden, they have become the advocates of good governance. I think we have to take it not with a pinch of salt but with an ocean of salt.

Q: Safeguarding territorial integrity, in the face of separatist sentiments and foreign interferences are some of the risks facing the country. What would be the impact of these under a new Presidential dispensation?

A: For 30 years, we fought to maintain the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and also to pursue the path of development.

the NDF has people with different ideas about territorial integrity. The SLFP and the JHU feel that it should be a unitary state with powers devolve to the provinces but within the ambit of the unitary state.

As stated by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka when there was a challenge to the 13th Amendment by a very narrow margin, they felt what was suggested at that time was nothing more that could be accommodated within the idea of a unitary state.

We are not legally bound by a federal state or an independent state or anything like that. We are still working under a unitary state with devolution of powers. There are people who have different views on it. How can they come together?

Q: Do you subscribe to the argument that there are dictatorial features in the Constitution to be removed and make Executive Presidency accountable to Parliament?

A: This presidential system was introduced by the late President Jayewardena and right up to today, it has been perpetuated by every single person who sat in the presidential chair.

This is not a question of Mahinda Rajapaksa but a presidential system that is in place. The presidential system was set up to give powers to the person who held the post of president

It is not the traditional system that the executive, legislature and the judiciary should having equal powers.

Because the way late Jayewardena envisaged it the President had to take certain decisions and in deed in Jayewardena's Constitution, the President was above the law in certain cases.

For example, his actions could not be questioned in a court of law. Whatever former Presidents Jayewardena, Ranasinghe Premadasa or Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga did could not be challenged in terms of their presidential powers during their term of office.

After one year, the President has been given powers to dissolve Parliament.

The President can change Prime Minister, Ministers and he is the Head of Cabinet. Actually, we can't talk of the Jayewardena political system as an equilibrium. Because many of the Presidents have come through Parliament and they have not used the full powers of the presidential. system.

In our new manifesto, we have said that this matter will be revived and if necessary, the presidential system will be amended.

There are people of the likes of Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha thera and his group of thinkers who want to abolish the presidency. Now they little realise that the unitary state even being recognised by the Supreme Court after the 13th Amendment depends on the presidential system.

In the provinces, there is a Chief Minister and a Cabinet. But there is also a President's representative as the Governor and the appointments are made by him. The President is the only one who represents the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country by giving his powers through the Governors.

Chaos

If you take away the powers of the President in areas like that, in spite of what these pandits have been saying, then you dissolve the whole idea of a central relationship with the provincial legislature which means chaos.

You cannot simply abolish the presidency and put what Ranil Wickremesinghe is referring to a mad hatter concept called 'Executive Prime Minister'.

This is an Executive Prime Minister with executive responsibilities which is rubbish.

If you see the way MPs have behaved, there are crossovers from both sides. But it shows the volatility of Members of Parliament. So having a Prime Minister and saying that he will use executive powers is a big joke.

I don't think, it is possible at all to clip the wings of the presidential system. That can never work and will lead to chaos. That is why a Constitutional Council has been suggested which will look at all aspects and come to a solution.

Q: What are these so-called mega deals? What have you got to say about the allegation that funds for development are borrowed at high interest and heavy burden is passed down to the people to pay back the debt for decades?

A: Actually in relation to the GDP, our debt is reducing. At one stage, it was 120 percent of GDP.

Even during the UNP time, it was over hundred percent. Now we have reduced it to 70 percent.

We hope to bring it down to 65 percent in another couple of years. The talk that we cannot proceed with our economy because we are heavily indebted is utter nonsense.

What they are doing is that they are taking the total debt and dividing it by the number of people in the country.

This is unacceptable because we don't have to pay all these debts in one year. These are staggered payments. Some have to be paid only 30 years later.

Our annual debt payment is nothing like the figures that the Opposition is putting forward. Our argument is simple.

In our economy, we have to invest in infrastructure. No country has had economic growth without investing in infrastructure.

Growth

Infrastructure is a must if we are thinking of growth. We have done extremely well especially the construction industry has contributed much to growth.

There is no country in the world which manages without interest.

A country should be congratulated if they can get swift funding for important projects. No donor will give money if they know that money cannot be recovered.

Now we have a system where we get the most advantageous terms for loans. We have no difficulty in paying back these loans. .

In investments such as this, we have to also remember strengthening our currency, weakening of foreign currencies, lowering oil prices because all these contribute to repayment.

We have borrowed heavily from Japan. People think its China. But actually earlier we were borrowing more from Japan than from China and later it changed.

Now the Japanese Yen has depreciated. The Japanese have deliberately depreciated the yen to make their products more marketable.

This gives us a terrific advantage because we have to give less rupees to repay the debt. Wherever countries depreciate currency, our repayments benefit.

When we have to spend less on oil, the money that we reserved for oil can be used to repay our loans which we are doing now.

We are moving to another stage - instead of borrowing, we have to invest.

The Port City project which is about US$ 2 billion investment coming from private investment. There will be GDP growth without concurrent increase in debt

We are borrowing from local banks without obtaining foreign loans. Then foreign debt will reduce.

Q: Would you like to compare and contrast the manifestos of the UPFA and NDF presidential contestants?

A: The UPFA manifesto is a continuation of the earlier two manifestos. The first five years we had the ' Mahinda Chinthana' and in the next five years we had the 'Mahinda Chinthana vision for the future'.

we have another five years up to 2022 or 2020 and it will be the ' Mahinda Chinthana lowa dinu maga'.

These are three clear targets based on short, medium and long- term plans. All these three aspects are taken care of in our manifesto.

We are strengthening the utilisation of national resources and to create investment in human capital to upgrade the quality of education

The NDF Presidential Candidate's manifesto is only a slip of paper on what they are going to do in 100 days.

My feeling is that they can't have a manifesto. They can only have this plan for 100 days. Because it won't last more than a 100 days even if they come to power.

Q:It is claimed that the Opposition Presidential candidate's manifesto does not bear any reference to the unitary character of the country. Your comments?

A: They can't give that assurance. Because the constituent parties have so many different views about it.

Some are for a strong centralised state. Others are for a federal state while some others are for an extreme state like what was envisaged in Canada.

If powers are devolved then it is extreme devolution. The UNP is also for devolution but may be not be for such extreme devolution. So like that each party has its own approach regarding the nature of the state.

They can never come together but they never talk about that. If they try to talk about it, the coalition will be over.

Q: Do you believe the UPFA's breakaway parties could impact President Mahinda Rajapaksa's vote bank in the country? Will they be politically strong enough to muster public opinion?

A: I don't think they will be able to change the result. But certainly as ethnic groups, they will try their best to detach from supporting our President. But we have to remember that they did the same thing in previous elections. So this is nothing new. According to our calculations, whatever they do, they cannot influence the result.

Mega development

Q: Despite the Government's mega development activities and social welfare projects, what made the organised opposition to preach the gospel of “change” at this moment? What is this change?

A: We must realise that there is something called 'Government fatigue'.

When a party or a person is in power for a long time, then a feeling for change arises. That has been there all the time.

There may be a feeling for change, but we must see whether it is good for the country or not.

In some instances, it may be good. But in the present context, it is not good. Because we are going on a particular path and the country has seen results.

We have won the war against terrorists and the country is having rapid economic growth and the global situation is extremely good.

For example, oil prices are coming down and there is a greater investment in Sri Lanka.

Our hub status is being recognised. Things are moving our way. As they say, the taste of the pudding is in the eating.

People have seen that growth. Why should they exchange that for a gathering of fugitives who don't know what they are going to do.

Each one is pursuing his own agenda and they may face disappointment in their careers. That is normal in politics.

If you look at politics as a whole, locally and globally, everybody cannot pursue their own agenda.

Politics is the art of compromise. Dictatorship comes when you don't have compromise. But President Rajapaksa has always been compromising.

Even the letter written by Rauff Hakeem is appreciative of the approach that the President has taken regarding their party, though they were pursuing a different political path.

We can't have change for the sake of change. You must change for the better.

It is evident that what the joint Opposition is saying is just a mass of words.

When Rnil Wickremesinghe was in power, they get various people who are outside the party system to prepare their manifesto and policies.

Those fellows have nothing to do with the hoi polloi in the party. They are never consulted.

The UNP's regaining Sri Lanka program had nothing to do with the party or Cabinet. There is a westernised group and they have never done a job of work in their lives.

They have different concepts and they are plugged down to these different concepts.

Q: The JVP propagated revolutionfor sometimes and then social justice. Today they have sidelined the presidential election and talk of “overall social transformation”. Is there any logic in their politics?

A: If they were serious in their thinking, they must put forward their candidate.

What is an election? An election is where different points of view are submitted to the voter who is the master and the voter takes a decision. I don't think it is proper for a party like the JVP which has many good points to stay out of an election. Because they must bring their point of view.

Today they are not saying anything. They are only saying to remove the incumbent President. But for a political party to have a one- issue agenda is not good for them in the long run. They are opting out.

They are saying we don't want Mahinda Rajapaksa, but we are not recommending anybody else. So it is an undecided position.

That is unacceptable for a party that says that they have a strong position. In fact, they have also come to the level of a Frontline Socialist Party. They are only muddying the water without giving their views.