Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya is one Government official who is never out of the news. On the contrary, he is a news maker and is also beloved of the cartoonists. During all elections held under his watch he appeared to be a central figure, even overshadowing and outshining the main candidates of the political parties. He is also known for his no-nonsense daring in standing up to powerful political leaders, countermanding their actions and decisions, all of which has won him much admiration and respect of the public. He is also famous for bucking the trend.
He has made headlines once again by comments that will no doubt be viewed as going against the grain. Addressing a function in Colombo the other day, Deshapriya ventured to say that he was against the popular view that only educated, professionally qualified should be sent to Parliament by the voters. All that a people’s representative needs, he argued, is worldly wisdom in sizing up situations and coming up with the right solutions. “I am not with the popularly held view that only the educated and learned should be MPs. All that he or she should have is the ability and understanding to analyze a subject and come up with the appropriate response,” he said.
He also said it was wrong to belittle the ability of those who are said to have not qualified in their GCE (O/L) exams among the present crop of MPs since they are equal to their more qualified colleagues in speaking on all topics. They are quite at home when confronted with any subject although they are not specialists on that subject, he added. They are not second to those MPs inclusive of five with doctorates, six medical doctors, five engineers and 50 attorney’s-at-law among our legislators, he asserted. He was of the view that one need not have a special qualification to be a Parliamentarian.
“Take my case. I have doctorates for Chemistry, Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. Yet I am concerned with only overseeing election work.” Similarly an MP need not to be an academically qualified person but one who has the ability to grasp a subject, analyze it and come up with the right solution, he said.
Deshapriya’s analysis of the topic of our MPs’ educational viability, no doubt has its merits. To begin with, not all our Heads of State since independence were academically qualified persons. This however did not take anything away from their ability and competence to steer the ship of state on the correct path. They possessed the necessary acumen, skills and foresight to size up situations and come up with the right solutions.
Leaders such as D.S. Senanayake, Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Ranasinghe Premadasa were not leaders with a string of academic qualifications against their names but are still held in esteem and veneration by the populace for the signal contributions they made to the nation. On the other hand what guarantee is there that the more academically qualified will be squeaky clean and shining examples of what Parliamentarians should be? Did having a high percentage of academically qualified men and women in the present Parliament as enumerated by Deshapriya improve its quality in any way? Besides, how many academically qualified individuals are today being arraigned before courts for fraud and corruption?
No doubt, Deshapriya’s sentiments will be music to the ears of those MPs who fear being excluded from nomination lists for being wanting in educational qualifications, given the recent outcry from both religious leaders and civil society groups that only professionals and academics should enter Parliament. Of course there is the need to differentiate between the decent and the undesirables. The Elections’ Commission Chairman by no means meant that the criminally suspect riff-raff too should qualify when he expressed the sentiments that our people’s representatives need not be academically qualified. The recent happenings in the present Parliament indicated that there were many among the current crop who should be left out of nomination lists.
This, no doubt, is going to be a difficult task, given the ground realities. Leaders cannot afford to ignore loyal party men who stood by their parties in fair and foul weather. Then there are those who worked round the clock to ensure victory at the last Presidential election. Besides, among the current crop of Parliamentarians on both sides there are those who are popular with the people and electorally indispensable. Not all of them, though not exactly the riff-raff, would qualify as paragons of virtue. Besides, in the present day electoral politics money and muscle power plays an important role as means of harvesting votes.
Now with the Elections Commission Chairman giving a clean bill of health to would be Parliamentarians without top-level educational qualifications there is the very real possibility of these elements too making a strong claim for their inclusion in the nomination lists of all parties. Nevertheless, we hope that the next Parliament will not be a mirror image of the present one.
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