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What is the President's real motive?

by Jehan Perera

The high level committee comprising senior officials belonging to the President's and Prime Minister's offices are reported to be working hard at identifying and prioritising the key issues to be dealt with in working out a compromise solution that could resolve the present political crisis.

By taking over three of the most powerful ministries of the government, President Kumaratunga has brought herself into the centre stage of national politics.	The people entrusted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with the difficult task of rescuing the country from war which he has done skillfully with maturity.

They have identified four key areas concerning the well-being of the country, but the taking the peace process forward has been accorded the first place. The other areas where they seek political agreement are with respect to the electoral system, the independent commissions and the economy.

There is urgency associated with the decision to deal first with the peace process. It is the halting of the war for nearly two years that has been the greatest achievement to take place in the country over the past two decades. It is the successful ceasefire that has attracted positive international attention and significant international aid and investments to Sri Lanka. But stable peace cannot yet be taken for granted. There is a major risk of inadvertent war that neither the government nor the LTTE may want, but into which they could get trapped.

The likelihood of inadvertent war derives from the fact that the more uncertain the conflicting parties become about the peace process, the more likely are they to place reliance on their military strength to protect their interests. It is inevitable that both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE will place increased emphasis on their military preparedness in this time of crisis. In the case of the LTTE, this will probably mean an increase in arms smuggling by sea.

The problem is that more arms smuggling by the LTTE by sea will mean more chances of them getting caught in the act by the navy and the greater the likelihood of violent clashes. In the past, LTTE cadres either fled with their ships or committed suicide. They did not fight back. This time around they may decide to act differently. A single incident can therefore unleash a train of events that the political leaderships of the two parties cannot control.

In resolving the crisis the high officials of the President and Prime Minister appear to be following a pattern set by the government and LTTE in their peace process. This has been to take a step by step approach, building confidence along the way.

Accordingly the harder problems are taken up later rather than at the beginning. It is a testimony to the improved public consciousness regarding the peace process that the high level committee has decided to tackle the peace process first as an issue that can be resolved. But sooner or later, those who are negotiating a deal between the President and Prime Minister will need to confront the core issue.

Core issue

Unless the real nature of a problem is discerned, efforts to find a solution are likely to end in failure. So long as successive governments in Sri Lanka saw the militancy in the north-east as primarily a matter of law and order and of terrorism, a solution was not possible. Even today, there are backward looking political parties that oppose the present ceasefire agreement. Parties such as the JVP advocate a solution that fits their dogmatic analyses, ones that are framed in terms of the old thinking that led to twenty years of escalating war.

The present peace process based on foreign facilitation and negotiations only became possible when President Chandrika Kumaratunga demonstrated political courage to publicly admit that there was an ethnic conflict in the country. Of course, it is a tragic fact that she failed to build on her analytical breakthrough, and together with her government got embroiled in a futile war for peace.

In December 2001 the people entrusted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with the difficult task of rescuing the country from war which he has done skillfully with maturity, while also demonstrating political courage.

Likewise, there is today a crisis of governance to which various solutions are being offered. The immediate cause of the crisis is the President's abrupt decision to take over three of the most powerful ministries of the government to herself. It is evident that at the heart of the crisis is the President herself and the powers of the presidency. It is also a fact that President Kumaratunga is entitled to be President for the next two years, and nothing that is either foreseeable or legitimate can change that reality. Therefore, it is very important to ascertain the President's motivations to ascertain how to resolve the present crisis of governance.

According to the President herself, the reason she took over the key ministries of defence, interior and media was the deterioration of the security situation in the country. This was also the opposition's lament and denunciation in the aftermath of the signing of the ceasefire agreement between the government and LTTE in February 2002. The visible advantages accruing to the LTTE due to their ability to move about freely and enter government-controlled territory in unlimited numbers was one of the most criticised aspects of the ceasefire agreement.

However, after taking control of that part of the government most concerned with security issues, President Kumaratunga appears to be conducting affairs in much the same way as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was doing when his ministers were in charge of those ministries. This brings to the fore an unanticipated benefit of the President's actions. It is now becoming increasingly clear to the general population that there is no better alternative to the peace process than the one that the Prime Minister was already engaged in.

Ironical similarity

Ironically, after taking over the three ministries, the President has followed exactly the same course of action concerning the ceasefire agreement that she once criticised so harshly. Responding no doubt to widespread fears among the general population and the international community that the peace process was about to break down, she has made repeated public statements that she would honour the entirety of the ceasefire agreement, and has also directed the armed forces to do so.

Second, the President also ordered the armed forces to abide by the rulings of the international monitors of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and respect their status as the arbiters of the ceasefire agreement. This was quite a turn around from her past conduct, where she had been a strident critic of the SLMM, even to the extent of publicly demanding that the Norwegian government should remove its present head for being biased. While the President has not rescinded her demand that the head be removed, she has legitimised the role of the international monitors by her orders.

Third, the President has not followed one of her own controversial directives to the former Defence Minister, whose portfolio she took over. Last month she ordered the former defence minister to remove the camp put up by the LTTE in an area of Trincomalee determined to be government territory by the international monitors. But now that she is the defence minister, she has kept quiet about the LTTE camp, no doubt realising that any effort to forcibly remove it could severely endanger the ceasefire.

Fourth, the President was responsible, as the person in charge of the defence ministry, for making a military helicopter available to visiting European Union external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, to visit the Wanni and meet with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran on his birthday. It is reported that the LTTE itself would have preferred another day, given the LTTE leader's busy schedule of activities on that day, but Mr Patten's schedule did not permit an alternate day. Although sections of public opinion in the country were outraged by the visiting dignitary's decision, the President obviously had a larger conception of the issue.

There was a virtue in Mr Patten personally visiting the Wanni and seeing for himself the importance of reconstructing that devastated land. It would also have helped Mr Prabhakaran convince those in his own camp who doubt the wisdom of the LTTE's change of strategy to one that is political rather than primarily military.

Further there is no doubt that the former British Governor of Hongkong who stood up to the Chinese government on issues of democracy and human rights would have informed the LTTE leader of the same. Going back to the military option would be a more difficult option for the LTTE in the future as a result of the expectations that have been created.

Therefore, it is clearly evident that the President, who took over the three ministries citing national security concerns, has not changed anything fundamental from what the Prime Minister and his defence minister was doing. Now she has instructed the media ministry that she took over not to criticise the LTTE. Her own words towards the LTTE have become more conciliatory and beginning to sound more like that of the government that she only recently was criticising for being too soft on the LTTE.

Asserting equality

The evidence is therefore irrefutably strong that President Kumaratunga's take over of a part of the government was not motivated by security concerns, but by something else. Since the President has shown by her own actions that security considerations were not the reason for her precipitate actions, the question is what was the reason. Logically speaking there has to be some weighty reason that motivated the President to take the risk she did, when she shocked the whole world, and her fellow citizens, by her sudden actions.

The weightiest motive for a politician to do anything is to obtain or keep political power. It is through the wielding of political power that a politician can turn his or her dreams into reality. The primary way that politicians serve the people who elect them is not through educating people, as in the case of intellectuals, or advocacy, as in the case of NGOs, which are essentially indirect ways of ensuring change. Rather, it is through the direct and hands-on power of making decisions and having those decisions implemented that politicians can best serve the people.

Therefore, in crafting a stable political solution to the present crisis, the reality of a power struggle needs to be recognised, and the President and her party's abiding interest in political power needs to be dealt with. There are many within her party including her own brother who would wish to force her hand and sign an electoral agreement with the JVP which differs fundamentally from the PA on the two key issues of the peace process and the economy. The stance of the President in resisting a purely opportunistic alliance that would throw the country into chaos needs to be appreciated in tangible form.

By taking over three of the most powerful ministries of the government, President Kumaratunga has brought herself into the centre stage of national politics. For two years, she was marginalised by the government and treated without respect within the cabinet by some of the members of the government. But now by taking over those ministries, the President has asserted her equality with the Prime Minister in governance, even though she has only three ministries and he retains more than 30.

Fundamental asymmetry

However, a fundamental asymmetry still remains and the President would wish to end this asymmetry as well. That is the fact that the Prime Minister has time on his side while the President does not. He can afford to wait until December 2005, at which time the next Presidential election falls due and he will be the ruling party's candidate. On the other hand, the President cannot afford to wait. When December 2005 comes she will be constitutionally debarred from contesting the Presidency ever again. This will undoubtedly affect the leadership role she can play both within her party and in the country at large.

Under clause 31(2) of the constitution, President Kumaratunga cannot contest the presidency a third time. But she is her party's biggest asset in terms of courting the votes of the general public. It is due to her leadership that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party became a middle of the road party both in terms of economic policy and with respect to the ethnic minorities. An artificial diminishing of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's role in Sri Lankan politics is to the detriment of the country at large.

It cannot be forgotten that it was the President who virtually single handedly turned her party around and gave the country its correct orientation in terms of resolving the ethnic conflict. Without her presence at the helm of affairs, there is the possibility of the SLFP reverting to its pre-Chandrika roots, with its emphasis on the negative aspects of state socialism and insular Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. Such a political party would be the natural ally of ultra nationalist and left wing extremist forces.

It is neither in the President's interest nor that of her party that she should become a diminished politician at the end of her second term as President due to a constitutional limitation. Therefore, a political strategy that seeks the exit of President Kumaratunga from leadership in national politics is likely to be a recipe for political polarisation and heightened need for authoritarianism in the future.

Positive motivation

The reform or replacement of the Executive Presidency should be part and parcel of the overall political settlement. A key concern of both the President and her party is that she should not become a lame duck president for whom the lights will go out at the close of her second and final term as President in December 2005. She is their main asset as its leader and vote getter. The reason that the President took over those three ministries was not simply to take personal charge of the peace process or simply share the credit for it.

The joint committee of high officials of the President and Prime Minister who are meeting to find a workable compromise need to give their sincere attention to the overall political objective of their exercise. They need to deal with the key issue, which is that of the future of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga as a fully empowered and undiminished political leader in Sri Lanka.

If they are able to deal with the issue of the executive presidency, they are likely to be able to obtain the President's full cooperation on the peace process and on the framing of a new federal constitution.

No amount of cordial and constructive discussion on other issues is likely to solve the problem of governance that has brought the country's peace process and economic development to a halt. The cordial and constructive discussions on other issues must necessarily lead to confidence building that would enable the two sides to discuss the core issue of the executive presidency. The most important issue that exists between the government of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and President Kumaratunga is not the conduct of the peace process or the security situation. It is that of the executive presidency.

There are two options available with regard to a solution with regard to the executive presidency. One is the abolition of the executive presidency in its entirety at the end of the present incumbent's term of office. The other is the repeal of clause 31(2) of the constitution that debars anyone from running for the post of president who has already been twice elected.

The preferable option is the first, as the institution of the executive presidency has shown itself to be unsuitable for Sri Lanka's political culture. It is an undeniable fact that the three Presidents who were elected to that office have all ended up using its enormous powers for partisan reasons.

When J.R. Jayewardene took power as president after waiting patiently in the wings for 40 years a great deal of wisdom was expected of him. But when he left the presidency he left behind a legacy of abuse, including the infamous referendum of 1981 that deprived the country of a general election. President Ranasinghe Premadasa presided over a reign of terror that does not need to be recounted to cause sleepless nights.

And now President Kumaratunga has shown the arbitrary way that the presidential power can be used. Very clearly it appears that the powers of the presidency are too big for any individual at the present stage of evolution of Sri Lanka's political culture.

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