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| Sunday, 2 May 2004 |
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Has Parliament stultified itself? SUNDAY ESSAY by AJITH SAMARANAYAKE The political pundits and the sages of parliamentary conduct the editorial writers and assorted scribes have already produced their acres of print on the imbroglio in Parliament on April 22 when the Speaker was elected. Dirges have been sung to the decline of Parliament and the wiseacres have wagged their heads ominously about the shape of things to come.
For Parliament as it is constituted today is only a distorted mirror of the national condition and popular aspirations. Although the UPFA scored a decisive victory cutting across a large swathe of the country at last month's election the electoral system with its hybrid of Proportional Representation, bonus seats and the National List does not truly reflect this popular will. Although the UPFA has the most number of seats in the House it does not have a working majority while the Opposition which outweighs the Government in its accumulated number of seats cannot with their disparate policies form a Government of its own. But it is capable of defeating the Government in a negative way as the election of the Speaker demonstrated. In this context the question arises whether Parliament has not stultified itself by electing a Speaker from the Opposition. If the system is to work the Speaker will have to work in consonance with the Government in determining the business of the House and in theory, of course, the Speaker is expected to conform to such norms of conduct since he will no longer be a member of a party but an individual above the political fray. The question, however, is whether this is possible in the context of today's contentious and extremely adversarial politics. Needless to say this is no reflection on Mr. Lokubandara who is a seasoned politician capable of drawing on unexpected mental resources. However the fact is that not only the Speaker but also the Opposition (or at least sections of it) will have to work in some kind of agreement with the Government if the system is not to be stultified. This will mean that the Opposition will in some measure have to transcend party loyalties and treat each piece of legislation on its merits but once again the question is whether a Parliament so fragmented on not merely political but also communal and even religious lines is capable of such action. This was best demonstrated by the conduct of the Jathika Hela Urumaya's political novices. They first took up the position that one of its MPs was ready to accept the office of Speaker if the choice was unanimous. This was hardly likely in the light of the fact that the Speaker needs considerable political experience apart from the need to be well versed in the law. When it was obvious that there would be a contest for the post the JHU said that they will abstain from voting as if the election of the Speaker was like some contagious disease. But even if they abstained what was the need for the JHU MPs to withdraw from the House at that point? It was clear to any observer that it was the JHU's withdrawal which led to UNP MPs occupying their seats and allegedly getting hold of their ballot papers which led to much of the unruly scenes in Parliament. When they did return two of the JHU MPs decided to vote for the UNP's nominee the reason given being that two of their votes had been 'robbed' by the UPFA. This claim was preceded by a campaign in sections of the press that two JHU monks had been abducted by the UPFA. Is it the contention of the JHU that these two bhikkhus who attended Parliament and voted with the Government have no independent rights of their own? Even more laughable was the contention that the JHU had supported the Opposition nominee in a bid to neutralise the votes of these two MPs. In Sinhala this came out as 'ekata eka kala' or tit for tat. But it was more than a nursery game of tit for tat that was being staged. It was more like the Old Testament dictum of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, a dictum which to be fair by most modern day Christians is no longer in vogue among them. This sudden transition of the bulk of the JHU bhikkus from a pacifist withdrawal from the election of the Speaker to an aggressive retaliatory doctrine exemplifies most dramatically the pitfalls of the present Parliament fractured on multiple lines. If therefore the Parliament is to work it will have to give up both nursery games as well as blood sports and return to a consideration of broad policies and programmatic goals. While it will be too much to expect most of these parties which are constituted on communal or religious lines to transcend their origins a commitment to the national welfare is certainly called for. In another sense however political observers will react with amusement to the sudden confrontation which has been engineered between the JHU hierarchy and such unpleasant realities as some of its members defying the party whip and having to be disciplined by a show of priestly muscle. It was also wishful thinking to have expected the Speaker to be elected without a contest. In fact it was the UNP which first gave notice that it will be putting forward a candidate linking this with the March 1960 scenario when the Opposition candidate T. B. Subasinghe was elected Speaker. However there was nothing to prevent sections of the Opposition (certainly the JHU comes to mind) from co-operating with the Government in electing a Speaker and making Parliament resemble something of the popular will as manifested at last month's election. But the monks fastidiously chose to keep away until suddenly invoking Jehovah's doctrine to justify their volte face. In conclusion a word of explanation might be called for about the devaluation of Parliament which we cited in the opening paragraph as partly mitigating the conduct of MPs on April 22. Parliament as the Prime Minister as its centrepiece (the Governor General and later the President under the 1972 Constitution was only the nominal Head of State) was both the legislative and executive arm of the Government with both the MPs and the Cabinet of Ministers being present in Parliament. However under the Executive Presidency enthroned by the 1978 Constitution the President became a virtual constitutional autocrat with Parliament only as a rubber stamp for the decrees of a President insulated from the pressures of a Parliament from which he was absent. It was after all President Jayewardene's own Prime Minister Mr. Premadasa who said that his functions were little better than that of a peon. It is this sense of importance felt by Parliament which makes it behave in aberrant ways however demeaning it might be to the parliament as an institution and parliamentarians themselves. |
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However it would be well to bear in mind that the unruly scenes of
April 22 did not erupt like some sudden earthquake. They were the
cumulative result of the systematic devaluation of Parliament produced by
the 1978 Constitution, a Constitution which strangely enough has found
some unlikely defenders in the face of the UPFA Government's determination
to dismantle it.
