|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 9 November 2003 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
JRJ's looming shadow : Regaining equilibrium in cohabitation Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA On Wednesday evening last, as the whole nation (and foreign governments) watched with bated breath the manoeuvres for state power between two powerful political blocs, some vehicle Drivers and Cleaners of the driver cadre of a state institution were manoeuvring over the right to operate a 'privileged' vehicle. That state institution had just been taken over by the President (that is the PA/SLFP) and, as the new chairperson of that institution arrived, a Driver-Cleaner duo of SLFP affiliation had physically forced aside the UNP-affiliated Driver and Cleaner rostered for duty for that vehicle and were claiming that privileged duty. To my mind, that drivers' squabble epitomised what was taking place at national level. Is anybody surprised at the President's take-over of UNP-held ministries? If anyone remembers old JRJ and his boasts about the awesome powers of the presidency he set up then, how could anyone be surprised at what Chandrika Kumaratunga has done? Those powers alone are enough to entice anyone, let alone someone in the difficult political position that this President found herself in. How JR's shadow looms! I don't think the UNP forgot about those presidential powers. I think the UNP simply forgot about Chandrika K. for just too long and she moved. The UNP Government forgot that the Presidency was occupied by Chandrika Kumaratunga, the head of their chief rival, the People's Alliance (nowadays, more the SLFP than anything else). Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP are victims of their own political miscalculation: did they actually think that they could proceed as a normal governing party - normal, that is, in the dubious Sri Lankan sense - and presume the PA to be in mere 'Opposition' (in the 'normal', equally dubious sense), and get away with things? Even more significantly, did the UNP think that they could proceed with their (certainly very laudable) peace effort and presume that Chandrika and the PA , committed as they are to a similar policy, would mutely support the effort while the UNP collected all the credit for it? Did they think that they could ignore the hard reality that they were in cohabitation with the PA in State power; that their electoral mandate was for a sharing of political power, and therefore of political credit? Or, were they aware of the possibilities and simply continued to gamble as to how long they could get away with it? Well, now they know. And if they were simply gambling, then they should not be surprised in the least at the President's move. But the way the Prime Minister and his colleagues were caught with their pants down, I suspect that they had not been merely gambling with full awareness of the possibilities. Rather, I think they made some wrong calculations based on wrong presumptions. The UNP presumed that, having won the parliamentary elections, they could keep all real political power to themselves and use this power to bring political credit to themselves and themselves alone. They consistently failed to bring the Presidency and the PA into a systematic collaboration in the peace process. In doing so they proceeded to hog all the political credit from the success of the peace process, something that simply cannot and should not be done in the context of cohabitation. In the normal, parliamentary democratic sense, as parliamentary political animals, the UNP was behaving correctly. But since when was Sri Lanka a 'normal' parliamentary democracy? Can we still continue to presume that we ever were such a democracy in the true-blue British sense? In that sense, the UNP is a victim of the larger Sri Lankan political system and the culture it has generated: the system of democracy based on party competition, and in the Sri Lankan post-colonial context, a system that has, for long, thrived on ethno-communal/class/caste party constituencies competing with each other for a larger slice of the Sri Lankan State 'cake'. This is the system that the obsequious Sri Lankan ruling class humbly received from their departing British masters while the mass of people remained in a colonially and feudally imposed state of submission and confusion. Democracy did not 'grow' in an organic way in Sri Lanka or, at least, as in India, was not organically struggled for and created through an indigenous initiative. I have written on this theme in these columns. So we have had a system in which people are expected to function politically as if they were in a European, affluent (colonially dominant), democracy, and choose between competing parties in a secularised, egalitarian constitutional environment. But post-colonial, impoverished, South Asian Sri Lanka, can never be that, and has not been. Hence, we have seen the modernist 'parliamentary democracy' becoming the framework for a continuing post-colonial endeavour for national recovery from colonial devastation. Sri Lankan society, with its traditional institutions fragmented and destroyed under colonialism, became only further fragmented into ethnic nationalist ventures for new forms of political community. The goal of political community itself has been, and continues to be, defined not by a strong, complex, tradition-based indigenous legacy (as in India) but, by an artificially imposed, simplistic, Western-style nation-state and 'democracy'. The nation-state became, on the basis of party electoral competition, the possession of a single ethnic community. Recent Supreme Court rulings affirming the link between Buddhism and the State, go to prove the stark reality of Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy over the Sri Lankan State. And since 1948, as the Sinhala-Buddhist community proceeded to consolidate its hold over the State, the State became the site of contestation for resources and opportunities for this community. Hence, the relentless rivalry between the two Sinhala-based 'national' political parties. As the Prime Minister himself pointed out in Washington last week when questioned by the media about the Presidential seizure of Cabinet portfolios, what we see is that same old contest. But it is far more than just a squabble between two parties as the PM implied. Actually, the PA and the UNP, based as they are on socio-political mass constituencies, are articulating the contestation between these to constituencies both of which are largely Sinhala. Thus, what we see is, in a sense, the Sinhalas continuing to fight over the 'spoils of State', as exemplified in the squabble among the vehicle drivers. Whether the President and the PA are going to remain locked in this parochial battle remains to be seen. It will do the President and the PA well to keep in mind several things vital not only to Sri Lankan society as a whole (including the people under LTTE governance) but specifically to the Sinhalas. I say this because the State they are manoeuvring over is yet a Sinhala dominated State. Firstly, notwithstanding the UNP's forgetfulness of this reality, the electoral mandate is for cohabitation in State power between the UNP and the PA. Secondly, any constructive and successful negotiation with the secessionist Tamil leadership can only be done on the strength of a sustained and intensive political collaboration between the Government and Presidency and, politically, between the UNP and the PA. Thirdly, the urgent need for pursuing that successful peace negotiation overrides any other priority and, therefore, any diversion from that cohabitation would significantly detract from the peace effort. Fourthly, just as much as the Tamil people are unified in their project for a self-determined political community (whether it will consolidate as a seceded State or will reintegrate depends on the negotiations), the Sinhalas too must build consensus among themselves in defining their own political community. This is crucial for the process of restructuring of the Sri Lankan State that is required for peace. This restructuring will only succeed if it not only provides some form of self-determination for the Tamils (and Muslims in the North-East), but also enables the Sinhalas to define their own political entity in a federated or confederated Republic; and the Sinhalas, who already have some form of polity, can end or reduce their squabbling over its spoils only through the remodelling of that polity to ensure genuine social democracy. In taking over these ministries, the President and the PA took possession of significant practical political power while the UNP also continues to possess similar power. It was a perfectly legal take-over and not some 'constitutional coup' as some allege. It was a necessary and logical adjusting of the political equilibrium that UNP's behaviour had pushed out of balance in its favour. How justified this take-over is, will only be seen in how this new advantage that the PA has gained is put to use. The maintaining of the symmetry of power is essential for cohabitation, presuming that both power blocs are genuine about cohabitation. It is imperative that both power blocs learn the crucial lesson of the times. How they practice their politics in the next few days will show whether they have learnt it. There are larger political and social dynamics (within this country) that are beyond the control of either the Government or the Presidency (notwithstanding J. R. Jayewardene's vainglorious constitutional construction). The unity and will of the Tamil people is one dynamic, and the military success of the LTTE is another. Also is the fact that the Sinhala people, in their belated wisdom, electorally mandated the PA and UNP to share State power in these times but may not be able to give the same mandate in the future. If the two power blocs fail to collaborate, the constitutionally laid out electoral timetable to come does not provide easily for a second such electoral mandate for collaboration. At the same time, the patience of the Tamils may run out. At yet the same time, the relations between Tamils and Muslims in the East may worsen and cause additional, complex crises. All this will turn the economic clock back. Who is prepared to gamble, to risk all this? |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
