Executive Presidency ideal for national consolidation

Ports Minister Dilan Perera stressing the importance of the Executive Presidency to take the country forward, said the JVP and the UNP demand the abolition of the Executive Presidency as they have failed to select a candidate for the Executive Presidency.

The Minister in an interview with the Sunday Observer expressed his views on the proposed Vote on Account to be presented in Parliament instead of the Budget, the Government’s stance on the GSP Plus issue and other key developments in the country’s political sector.

by Uditha KUMARASINGHE

Q: Will the Government first go for a General Election or a Presidential Election?

A: Constitutionally the President has the power to go for a snap Presidential election after he completes four years in office. It can be a Presidential Election because the people want the President to go for a Presidential Election soon as they want to endorse the good work done by the President. They also want to show the entire world that the victory gained by the present Government is endorsed by the entire nation as well. A Parliamentary Election is anyway due before next April. So it might be a case of having the Presidential Election first and the Parliamentary election after that. Or else it can be a case of having a Parliamentary election first and the Presidential Election later. Perhaps it can be a case of having both elections together. The UPFA is ready for any election coming first or both coming together.

If it is a Presidential Election, we are ready with our common candidate. Our common candidate is President Mahinda Rajapaksa. But the UNP or the JVP does not have a common candidate. Therefore, the UPFA is ready for any election coming first.

Q: Are you confident that the Government would be able to obtain a two thirds majority?

A: Since I belong to the Government, I always say yes. But not only me, it seems that even the UNP and the JVP have already given up on winning any election in the future. Even UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had told a press briefing that President Rajapaksa will have to forego two years of his first term when he wins the election. It means the Opposition Leader has already decided that the next election is going to be won by the President. That is why he is saying that the President will have to forego two years out of his six years. It is upto the Supreme Court to interpret the law and the Constitution and tell the country whether the President has to forego two years or whether he has to forego one year or whether he can serve his two years and then go on to serve his next six years. But Wickremesinghe being very sure that President Rajapaksa will have to forego two years from his first term means President Rajapaksa will win the next election.

Even the JVP Parliamentary Group Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake had told a recent press conference that President Rajapaksa will have to forego two years when he wins the next election. Therefore, Anura Kumara Dissanayake is also saying that the next election will be won by President Rajapaksa. Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, they all are saying President Rajapaksa will have to forego two years from his first term. They are also saying President Rajapaksa will win the second term. Therefore both the UNP and the JVP are very confident that President Rajapaksa will win.

When the Opposition is very confidently saying that President Rajapaksa will win, we in the Government say that he is not only going to win but also with a two thirds majority.

Q: How do you view the overall results obtained by the Government at the Provincial Council Elections?

A: When the late President J.R. Jayewardene introduced the Proportional Representation (PR) system nobody ever thought that any party can get a two thirds majority at any election. But President Rajapaksa has proved that wrong. Of these seven Provincial Council Elections held so far, the UPFA managed to get a two thirds majority in the North Western Province, Uva Province and also in the Southern Province. In three Provincial Councils, the UPFA under the leadership of President Rajapaksa has managed to break all the election records by securing a two thirds majority. The two thirds majority which is almost impossible under the PR system has also been achieved.

Therefore, President Rajapaksa has gone down in history as a person who has achieved a lot of things that were considered impossible. May 18, 2009 was the day that created history in this country. It was the turning point in the history of our country and it was the day that the dream of all Sri Lankans came true. The dream was defeating terrorism.

This dream became true when President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Commander-in-Chief supported by the Commanders of the three Armed Forces and with the great support extended by the Defence Secretary won the war against the LTTE. That was something impossible. However, President Rajapaksa managed to realize that dream! It was also impossible for any of the previous Presidents to start Norochcholai and Kotmale power projects. But President Rajapaksa started these two power projects and several other power projects as well. It was also impossible to go ahead with the Matara expressway. But the President has managed to make it a possibility.

Nobody would have thought the Hambantota Port Project would ever become a reality. It had been in the history of books for years and had been only an election promise. Today the Hambantota Port Project is becoming a reality. This project is going to be the gateway not only to the Sri Lanka’s future but also to that of Asia as well. According to the political analysts, the economic growth in the whole world will be focused in and around Asia within the next 25 years. So the Hambantota Port is going to be the future of Asia.

Therefore, President Rajapaksa as a Leader has made lots of impossible things possible and a lot of dreams come true.

Q: What is your opinion on the demand made by the JVP and UNP to abolish the Executive Presidency?

A: If we take the history of our country, the constitutional arrangements are very critical for its progress. The progress of a country is based on various constitutional arrangements. The present constitution radically changed the parliamentary form of governance into a presidential form where the Chief Executive was directly elected by the people and the legislature was elected in a separate election.

This Constitution was not based on deliberations of a constitutional assembly but by amending the first Republican Constitution by a two thirds majority obtained through the prevailing First-Past-the-Post System. In 1977, what late President J.R. Jayewardene did was he got a five sixth majority in the 1977 election under the First-Past-the-Post System and then he introduced the executive presidential system into the present constitution.

He became the President through the back door. The first time he was not elected by the people as the President. The executive presidency in our country is a mixture of everything. We have ingredients from the American system and French system. That is why the late President J.R.Jayewardene referred to the Constitution and said the only thing that the President of Sri Lanka cannot do is to make a man a woman and vice versa! It was in executive presidency where a lot of power is concentrated in one body.

Today why is the JVP asking to abolish the executive presidency? The Executive Presidential system has been very advantageous to the country in recent times. When the executive presidency was introduced to the country, the minorities supported it. The minority parties thought they can always have more support for their cause under the executive presidential system. But there was only one group from among the minorities which did not support the executive presidency. That was the LTTE.

The LTTE never supported it and was always against it. Because the LTTE always thought that they would be defeated if there is a President with a backbone. That was what exactly happened on 18th May 2009. There came a Leader with a backbone called Mahinda Rajapaksa. He defeated the LTTE within two years and seven months. It was the power of the executive presidential rule that enabled President Rajapaksa to defeat the LTTE.

The President used his executive powers to appoint Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as the Defence Secretary and General Sarath Fonseka as the Army Commander. When the President was going to appoint General Sarath Fonseka as the Army Commander, some UNPers opposed it. But President Rajapaksa appointed him as Commander using his executive presidential powers. The President also extended the term of office of former Navy Commander Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda and appointed Air Vice Marshal Roshan Gunathilaka as the Air Force Commander.

Therefore, all these sectors were well guided militarily and politically and helped the President to bring victory to the country. The Executive presidency was very useful to defeat the LTTE. There are many instances in our history where the executive presidency has been very advantageous. I am asking the JVP directly, was it not on the joint request of the JVP and the SLFP that former President Chandrika Kumaratunga used her powers as the Executive President and took over the ministries of Defence and Internal Affairs, Mass Media and Ports and Telecommunications when Ranil Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister? That is why we were able to stop the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government from implementing the Regaining Sri Lanka Program which had been planned to sell the entire assets of this country to the outside world.

If this Regaining Sri Lanka Program was not stopped, still the LTTE would have been controlling parts of the North and the East. But the JVP has forgotten all these. It is upto the JVP and the UNP to realise these things. Let us all get together and look into the weak areas of the executive presidential system and address them. But for this country to go forward, we need the executive presidential rule. We can’t go back to the Westminster system. The country has to go forward. If someone wants to abolish the executive presidency genuinely, the centralised powers of the Executive President should be decentralised.

But what is the JVP doing ? They are pasting one poster on a wall saying abolish the executive presidency and another right opposite against the devolution of power.The JVP can’t agitate against the devolution of power and then say abolish the executive presidency. Because they are contradicting each other.

The JVP and the LTTE were always the two sides of the same coin. The LTTE was against the executive presidency because why they knew if a person with a strong backbone became the Executive President that would be their end. That happened. Today the JVP is against the executive presidency not because they want to abolish it but they don’t have a candidate to put forward for the executive presidency. The JVP knows their candidate cannot get even three percent of votes. The JVP can’t support the UNP because then the grass roots level JVP supporters will get to know that the JVP leaders and the UNP leaders are working together. Today the JVP and the UNP are like twin brothers or twin sisters in Parliament.

Now the UNP is advising the JVP and the JVP is advising the UNP. There is a talk that the UNP is funding some of the JVP propaganda network as well. Today the JVP has become the workers’ arm of the UNP. But the grass roots level JVPers don’t know about this.

But looking for a common candidate will not work. Because the common candidate has already been found. Today President Rajapaksa has become the common candidate of everybody. At present lots of UNPers, minority parties and a section of the JVP led by Wimal Weerawansa are supporting the President. The JHU has also joined President Rajapaksa. Therefore President Rajapaksa is the common candidate among all the communities. There is no purpose of the UNP or the JVP looking for a common candidate.

Q: Several trade unions have planned to go for an islandwide strike. They allege the Government has failed to address their grievances. Is this a genuine demand or a move to de-stabilise the Government?

A: This is a move to de-stabilise the Government. Because if someone is sincere about getting a pay hike for the public servants, then the strikes or pickets would have started off within the institutions where the salaries are in the range of Rs.11,000, 12,000 or 14,000. It is under President Rajapaksa, the minimum salary of a Government servant became Rs.11,000. Therefore President Rajapaksa is the person who brought the minimum salary of a Government servant to five figures. The people who are asking for a wage hike are not those who are drawing Rs.11,000, 12,000 or 13,000.

They are drawing a Rs.25,000 or 30,000 salary per month. But see the institutions they have picked to start these strikes. They have chosen the vital points of the Sri Lankan economy such as CPC, CEB and the Port to start these pickets and strikes. These institutions have been chosen as they can cripple the economy of the country.

Q: The UNP and some other Opposition political parties say the Government is going to present a Vote-on-account instead of the Budget in Parliament as the Government has failed to formulate a Budget to provide relief to the people. What is your comment?

A: This is a political joke made by them. The Government is just about to go for a Presidential Election or Parliamentary Election. If the Government wanted, it would have prepared a budget giving a lot of promises to the people. We could have easily used that budget to win the election. If we presented a budget of that nature, the very same JVP and the UNP will say this is an “Election Budget”.

The Government did not prepare such an Election Budget. But the Government wanted the people to endorse the programs of “Mahinda Chinthana”. We wanted to ask the people, are you with the Government? We don’t want to hoodwink the people.

Our position was that a new Government is going to be elected next year and that Government is also going to be from the UPFA. But there will be new faces in that Government. The Cabinet of that new Government is going to be reduced to 35 Ministers and 35 Deputy Ministers. This new Government will bring a new era to this country.

The victory against terrorism is now going to be transformed into that of development. Therefore we thought that the new Government can present the Budget rather than putting forward an Election Budget.

Q: If the Government wins both Presidential and General polls, will it promptly implement devolution or other proposals for resolving the ethnic problem and legitimate grievances of minorities ?

A: The simple answer is yes. Because right now, the war is won and the LTTE is defeated. We are definitely going to win the elections and get a two thirds majority in both elections. After we win the elections, we will give a political solution to the problems of the Tamil speaking people.

That is the only way to stop another Prabhakaran coming up. The only way is to rally round President Mahinda Rajapaksa and then find a solution based on power sharing mechanism. I am sure after the election victories such power sharing mechanism will be implemented with the help of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim Leaders in this country.