“People are faced with the problem of trying to save themselves from a political system that is that has virtually destroyed all the basic public institutions within the country. What the people need to express their vote for, is not to give a further assent to a system that is destructive of the nation but in order to destroy the system as it exist now and to return back to democracy.”...........................................................................
By Basil Fernando
(November 27, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) In Sri Lanka now everybody’s discussion is about the presidential election which is to be held by the end of January 2010. All Sri Lankans will be exposed to the harassment of excessive propaganda on this issue in the coming two months. The heat in this discussion is not about some of the country’s major economic, political and social problems. It is more about an individual who may become the all powerful person within the country. In the Sri Lankan political system, the executive president virtually enjoyed absolute power very much like the monarchs of feudal times.
The election that is held prematurely two years before its time is made with the hope of exploiting victory over the LTTE for the purpose of getting a second term for the incumbent president. He is challenged by a joined opposition which is seeking a common candidate . The likely candidate is the former army commander whose claims are based on leading the military in the final struggle against the LTTE. Both will try to claim the highest powers within the country on the basis of this military victory.
However the country’s major problems now are the instability of the economy , solving growing unemployment and extremely difficult living conditions that are faced by the people throughout the country. More than any other time, the common problems of all communities, Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others, have surfaced as against a peculiar problems of any particular community. And irony in this election is that the major demand of the people at this election is the abolition of the executive presidency itself. Thus this has become an election of an executive president for the purpose of abolitions of the actual powers of the executive presidency.
Rather ironically the government itself has declared that if it come to power it will abolish the executive presidency. Before the previous election the incumbent president also made it major part of his election manifesto to promise the abolition of the executive presidency. However, no move at all was made in that direction. Thus if the executive president presently holding power, want to abolish the executive presidency, he is a position to do so now, because the entirety of the opposition is also in agreement for the abolition of this particular type of power that is wasted with the head of the state as of now. All that is needed is a motion before the parliament to be placed by the government to abolish the executive presidency .Thus the executive presidency can be abolished before the election is held.
The Sri Lankan parliament has been deprived of actual political power by the creation of the executive presidency through the 1978 constitution. The very meaning of electoral politics have lost in Sri Lanka because people are unable to elect representative who will play the leading role in making legislations for resolving of people’s problems and airing of people’s graveness within the parliament. Thus the major political problem within the country from point of view of democracy is as how to re-generate the parliament itself.
However even the holding of the presidential election before the parliamentary election is used as a method to preclude the possibility of an emergence an independent parliament that is able to legislate independently and to be able to have a decisive control over the way the power is managed within the country. Virtually people are being manipulated into an election for the purpose of electing a dictator who will thereafter dictate terms to parliament and to the to all branches of government.
People are faced with the problem of trying to save themselves from a political system that is that has virtually destroyed all the basic public institutions within the country. What the people need to express their vote for, is not to give a further assent to a system that is destructive of the nation but in order to destroy the system as it exist now and to return back to democracy.
The country’s national security system has become the overall apparatus within which the freedom of people have being restricted in all areas of life. The extend of the oppression that has developed in the country is such that virtually anyone who express an independent opinion is being subjected to various kinds of sanctions. The extent to which the media freedom have being destroyed is being talked about world over. Many journalists have being killed, many others have left the country. The trade unions and free associations which provide any kind of organization for the people are also brought under severe restrictions.
The issue in the coming public debate in this election need to be to find ways to dismantle a system of repression that has been imposed in the country and the ways to create a democratic framework by return to rule of law.
Instead of electing a dictator, this election should be about dismantling the system of dictatorship. -Sri Lanka Guardian
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