Choices: How Should We Govern Ourselves?

By Rohan Samarajiva –June 29, 2015

Prof. Rohan Samarajiva

This central question of civilization has assumed greater salience in the aftermath of the Presidential Election of 8 January 2015. This article seeks to shed a little light upon it, with aid of illustrations from recent Constitutional-reform efforts.

Autocracy or democracy?

Two hundred years after the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom, we carry within us thinking from that decadent feudal time. We yearn for a benevolent king who will be decisive and fair, but do not grasp what is required to assure continued benevolence. We do not buy into the concept of checks and balances among clearly defined branches of government. The Kandyan political culture did not separate the executive and legislative functions and while some judicial functions were separate, the lines were porous.

Like the Kings of old, some of our leaders fail to distinguish between what belongs to the state and what belongs to them. They scheme to work around them what checks and balances that exist.

In January, the choice was made in favor of democracy and governance concepts that are alien to our inherited Kandyan political culture. We have been engaged with the modern world long enough for this to happen, but all signs in the past twenty years were against it. But the shift was not irreversible; the tension between the old feudal culture and modern democratic culture persists.

Decisive or messy?

Separation of powers, along with checks and balances, is messy. Outcomes cannot be predicted in advance. The President of the United States is seen as the most powerful person in the world today, but in many instances he is stymied either by the legislature, by the courts or even by lower-level state governments.

Our current President appears comfortable with the notion that he cannot determine the outcomes of all political events. He leaves room for the agency of other members of his coalition as well as his party. To many, this appears a lack of leadership. They cannot understand how the President could be deeply committed to electoral reform without specifying the exact outcome he desires.Read More