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by Harim Peiris

The logical culmination of the political machinations that went on in the past few weeks subsequent to the Government entering into a MoU with the JVP resulted in the dissolution of parliament and the President calling a general election scheduled for December fifth of this year. Parliament was dissolved exactly one year after the last election, which also coincided with the first death anniversary of the late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

Prior to the dissolution of Parliament there had been some moves to form a so-called national government between the PA and the UNP. Reportedly with the UNP even willing to drop its demand for presidential powers for its prime minister, so desperate was the Opposition Leader to avoid an election. However the power hungry and dominant clique within the main opposition UNP, those that had in fact plotted not so long ago against their leader were adamant that the party should proceed with its original game plan.

Their strategy or more accurately their conspiracy is fairly straight forward. Use a simple majority in parliament, even with the aid of smaller ethnic parties to impeach the current Chief Justice and ensure the installation their own nominee as CJ, with the threat that any other nominee would also be impeached. Thereafter send up to the newly reconstituted Supreme Court a motion to impeach the President, passed by a simple majority of the House and accepted by a pliant Speaker. Once the Court, now entirely a political tool, impeaches the President, the current opposition leader assumes that office and one of the prime ministerial aspirants from the ranks of the UNP or the PA dissidents would be appointed to that post. This would enable the current Opposition Leader whose party has never yet won an election under his stewardship to achieve through manipulation, what he never could through the free will and vote of the people. It is to prevent essentially the above mentioned coup d' etat, that parliament was dissolved and elections called.

For those who consider the above a rather far-fetched conspiracy theory of the paranoid, consider the striking parallel from our recent history. The current opposition leader's uncle the late President JRJ was first elected Prime Minister in 1977. He celebrated that event with an orgy of post election violence, which included throwing human excreta at the Bandaranaike ancestral home in Horogolla. Thereafter JRJ introduced his draconian constitution for which he had no mandate from the people and in the process entirely reconstituted the Supreme Court, dismissing independent judges and packing the bench with his handpicked and pliant nominees. Thereafter fearing to face an election with the electoral system that we are now cursed to live with, a fraudulent referendum was used to extend parliament. Then to win the presidential election, he had a political Bench strip the then Leader of the Opposition the late Ms. Sirimavo Bandaranaike of her civic rights so that he could have a one man race election. One should also remember that the UNP always preferred to conduct elections with most of the opposition leaders in jail as was the President's late husband Vijaya and the current Prime Minister among many others. Then he succeeded in causing some dissension within the SLFP, pitting mother against son. So these are the democratic credentials and proud track record of the main opposition party, which is why when its affable new deputy leader calls for a new political culture one is tempted to call out, physician heal thy self.

Stripping a Leader of the Opposition of her civic rights before an election has huge implications for democracy and directly negates the franchise of the people. It makes a mockery of their sovereign choice, since the leader representing all those not supportive of or opposing the government has been disenfranchised. The process was through the Kangaroo court of Presidential Commission, enabling legislation for which was rushed through the rubber stamp five sixth majority parliament elected with less than fifty one per cent of the vote in the first past the post system. One wonders where all the defenders of democracy, the foreign funding foundations, alternative policy types, the private media, the business leaders and the OPA was when all this was happening.

Where the Uncle JRJ has deemed stripping the current President's mother of her civic rights through a dubious process, with the quite complicity and tacit approval of the Colombo establishment, i.e. private media, business leaders, the academic community and professional bodies, quite in order, one is unsurprised that JRJ's nephew, the current Opposition Leader is inspired to attempt to strip the President of her duly elected office, through the most dubious process of a highly political and essentially non judicial impeachment with the help of some sympathetic or even conniving judges. The judiciary was also politicised by the UNP through irregular assignments and promotions.

It is very clear that the democratic choice of the people don't figure in the UNP's calculations at all. If one inquires as to why a motion of no confidence was presented a few days after a multipartisan constitutional amendment and only one year after the previous general election, the simple and true answer would be a power lust by the current opposition and an impatience to come in to office.

However stripping the daughter of the presidency would not be as easy as stripping the mother of her civic rights. Sri Lanka still retains its democratic fabric due to the SLFP generally abiding by the rules and taking the occasional beating by the UNP to preserve the system. Accepting the civic right deprivation was a case in point. Priorly permitting the Presidential Commission of Inquiry Act was a travesty of justice and a democracy destroying act. However in the event that the forty per cent loser of the presidential election attempts at the instigation of the media mafia, the bookie kings and loan defaulters to strip the fifty two per cent winner of a Presidential election of the powers, a new civil war in South would occur. There would be mass uprisings as the masses who elected Chandrika Kumaratunga as President of this country come out on to the streets to protect their sovereign choice. The recent impeachments of Presidents Estrada of the Philippines and President Wahid of Indonesia which so inspires the strategies of the UNP had several significant differences. President Estrada was elected with only about thirty per cent of the national vote in the Philippine system which elects the candidate who polls the highest irrespective of a majority, while President Wahid was the leader of a small parliamentary party who was elected as a compromise candidate by Parliament rather than directly by the people.

Should the UNP attempt to destroy democracy in Sri Lanka by impeaching the popularly elected President. She owes it to the vast majority that elected her, to provide the leadership to the mass protests and public outrage against the UNP that will occur as a result.

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