A Hectic Week in Politics: Political Stalemate Compounding Economic Crisis

 

by Rajan Philips-2022/04/10

Last week I ventured to suggest that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa could emulate US President Lyndon Johnson’s pre-emptive abdication speech in 1968, and inform the country that he will not seek a second term as President, and will use the remainder of his single term to work with all the political leaders and parties in parliament to make sure that Sri Lanka avoids mass starvation and that its derailed economy is put back on track. The key feature in this scenario is the President reaching out to the people and asking for their consent for him to continue in office after all the tumults that began in Mirihana.

After a hectic week in politics, the President is yet to address the nation, let alone ask for the consent of the people for him to continue in office. The events of this week and the continuing hardships in people’s lives warrant a national address by the President. A Head of State is not a backroom operator but the interface between the state and the citizens. Effective national communication is an essential part of an elected president’s job. In the current situation, when so much is at stake and so many people are genuinely hurting, the President is also guilty of not showing empathy besides being unacceptably unforthcoming.

All we have are reports that the President had informed political parties in the government that “he will not step down from the Presidency but will hand over the government to whoever that holds 113 seats in Parliament.” Later the President let his dummy in parliament, Johnston Fernando, the Government Whip, to declare in the Assembly that “the President will absolutely not resign.” On Thursday, the President showed up in parliament and took his seat, only to be seen but not heard.

 

Inexecutable Powers

While there is no sign of the President resigning any time soon, there is no sign either of the people letting up on their insistent demand that Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa must leave. To-date there has not been any public sign of support for the President to continue in office. There is no mistaking the direction in which the political wind is blowing. It is more than the proverbial wind. It is a storm, an unprecedented tsunami on the political landscape. At the same time the economic crisis and the people’s hardships are not showing any sign of abating. The economic crisis and the political stalemate are merging into one another. Others watching Sri Lanka from the outside are raising similar concerns.

From its neighbourly perch, The Hindu has editorialized that “the road to Sri Lanka’s economic recovery will have to pass through political change.” The rating agency Moody’s has warned that “protracted political uncertainty is likely to hinder progress in obtaining external financing from key development partners or attracting foreign direct investment, or both, because of Sri Lanka’s reliance on capital inflows to repay its sizeable foreign-currency obligations.” Further, “the difficult political environment could also weigh on policymaking and the economy’s recovery from the pandemic, compounding challenges to fiscal consolidation and government efforts to shore up reserves to service its external debt obligations.”

By continuing in office, the President is not only aggravating the challenges facing the country, but he is also setting himself up for a harsh exit relative to the somewhat quiet way out that he can take advantage of now. So far, the government has tried imposing a curfew, declaring a State of Emergency, and disbanding the SLPP-led government and forming a new national government. But nothing has worked. The President has all the powers but he seems unable to execute anything.

He declared a State of Emergency on Friday and revoked it on Tuesday. Easily the shortest duration of Emergency Rule in Sri Lanka. The government knew that parliament would have rejected an extension. The curfew last Sunday became a political picnic for the people. The President staged a cabinet resignation as a sop to the protesting people. Now he cannot find enough MPs to have a cabinet of more than three ministers.

Literally, as I am writing this on Friday afternoon, Ali Sabri has told parliament, “I was compelled to revoke my resignation as the Finance Minister, as no one was willing to take over the ministry.” So, Sri Lanka has four ministers and a Finance Minister!

The President has also appointed three eminent Sri Lankan economists as Special Advisors. But this comes two years too late, after the country has been taken to the cleaners by charlatans who were tasked with running the government.

The President’s efforts to form a national government have been brutally rebuffed. On Thursday, the JVP/NPP leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake greeted the President’s attendance in parliament by reiterating the JVP’s position that it will not accept any proposal for an interim government unless the President resigns. The Leader of the Opposition, Sajith Premadasa, has said the same thing on Tuesday. And so has every other political party in parliament. Forty two MPs have left the governing alliance. The government has a majority of one, one day, and no majority the next day. Still, the President seems to think he can go on merrily for three more years without resigning.

 

Breaking the deadlock

The government has lost its two-thirds majority in parliament. But the governing party, the SLPP, still has about 112/113 MPs out of the total 225. That slender and fleeting majority of SLPP MPs is the only political support the President has in the country. The near-equal divide in parliament is not a portrayal of the country that is overwhelmingly united in calling for the President’s resignation. As I said earlier, there is no one outside parliament standing up in support of the President staying in office without resigning.

It is unfortunate that the Speaker of Parliament, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardane, reportedly ruled out the possibility of Parliament asking the President to step down. Apparently in his view “Parliament has no democratic right to ask the president to resign.” I beg to disagree. Parliament can ask for anything but the President does not have to abide by it. Yet, a resolution calling on the President to resign will carry a powerful symbolic effect. It will resonate with what the people are calling for from outside the scaffolds of the state.

To his credit, the Speaker also made a special statement in parliament to warn about an impending food crisis and “appealed to lawmakers to sink their political differences … and come together to find solutions.” The Speaker knows full well as to who is stopping lawmakers from coming together. It is the President who is refusing to resign. The role of the Speaker in the current situation is unenviable. His role is not to intercede on behalf of the President in parliament. It is to faithfully convey to the President the mood in parliament, which ought to be the mood of the people.

On the other hand, it is wrong for GL Pieris, the resigned and re-sworn Foreign Minister, to suggest, as he reportedly ‘explained’ to Colombo’s diplomatic community, that the current demonstrations are “not directly against the government, a political party or the ruling party but against the entire political establishment of the country and that the very foundation of the system was under criticism.” It is also beneath him to use isolated protest rhetoric allegedly calling “for all MPs to resign and allow academics and professionals to run the country,” and suggest that the protest demands are infeasible. They have only one demand – for the President to resign.

Minister Pieris is also reported to have “outlined the Constitutional provisions that were currently available which included the Prime Minister taking over for 60 days in the event an incumbent President resigns, after which the MPs would have to elect a suitable leader among them to lead the country for the remaining period until an election could be held.”

Perfect! But he was speaking to the wrong audience, the diplomatic community! The former academic should have a tutorial for the President and the Prime Minister and explain to them that there is nothing unconstitutional about the public outcry calling for the President to resign. He could also be helpful by suggesting that both the President and the Prime Minister should resign and Parliament can elect one of its MPs to be sworn in as interim President. That is all the people are asking for.

Not only Minister Pieris, but opinion makers and editorial writers are also missing the mark when they keep preaching to the people to keep peace and avoid violence. Instead, they should aim at the bullseye and call on the President to resign with honour and spare the country from prolonging the agony. In the current mood of the country, the only way the President can serve democracy is by resigning. He can do it in time for the country to celebrate New Year in high spirits even if people’s stomachs are not full and their nights are without lights. And he can do it in time for the country to mark Easter with new hope and optimism.