By
Dharisha Bastians
It is quickly beginning to look as if the Government may have bitten off a little more than it can chew with regard to revising the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ahead of the Northern provincial council election. All signs show that the Rajapaksa administration is being pushed into a corner with regard to the absolute necessity to hold the poll in the North by its self-imposed September deadline.
For it is important to remember that while the international community, including New Delhi and Sri Lanka’s firm friend Tokyo, are holding Colombo to the September election promise, the very first commitment in this regard came from President Rajapaksa himself in repeated media interviews and promises to foreign visitors.
The President’s argument more than a year ago was that the Government’s ‘Uthuru Wasanthaya’ or Northern Spring development program required more time for completion before provincial administrations could be set up and the tasks handed over. Month after month, the President held fast to his September 2013 promise, believing his Government could keep using the reconstruction argument to push back the date further.
The flaw in the plan appeared when the US delegation in Geneva decided to uphold the President’s September poll promise in the text of its second resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council this year – allegedly at the behest of New Delhi. Making matters worse, President Rajapaksa’s mid-UNHRC visit to Tokyo that was a major diplomatic success for the regime with Japan pledging millions in aid and support for Sri Lanka’s post-war recovery plans but it came with a caveat. Japan would dole out money and support Colombo by abstaining at the vote on the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka but all bets were off if the Government failed to hold elections in the North by September this year.
The inclusion of the poll promise in the resolution was a reflection of the international community’s continued frustration with Sri Lanka’s broken promises since 2009 on matters relating to reconciliation and a final political solution to the ethnic problem.
More time
As the clock ticks on the September deadline however, the Government has decided it wants more time to continue its development work in the north and affect massive economic recovery in the Northern Province before it is willing to cede control to the Tamil National Alliance in a provincial election.
While the Central Government’s authority in the North will remain largely unchallenged, once a TNA led Provincial Council is constituted, the Government will no longer have supreme authority over all matters in the region, with some subjects clearly devolved to the provincial administrations by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. If the timing of the Northern election is non-negotiable internationally, then the Government must opt for the next best thing – a means to decapitate the provincial councils and ensure the centre’s writ remains unchallenged in the Tamil and Muslim dominated regions. Therefore, to begin with, the Government sought to introduce a 19th Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the power of adjoining provinces to merge to form a single administrative unit and allowing Parliament to pass laws relating to the powers of the Councils by removing the hindrances enshrined within the 13th Amendment to such usurping moves.
Backtracking
The resistance to the move within the President’s Cabinet of Ministers was unprecedented. Hastily abandoning the second revision, the President decided to go ahead with an urgent bill to repeal the merger clause, even though he was in no way certain of absolute support to the move from his coalition partners.
It has been three weeks since the Cabinet spokesman vowed that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution would be tabled in Parliament within four days of his statement, but something is holding the regime back. Needless to say, it is going about its usual business. Each provincial council controlled by the UPFA – except perhaps the East – will likely pass resolutions approving the Government’s proposals to dilute the 13th Amendment.
A similar tactic was adopted during the Divi Neguma fracas, as a show of strength by the ruling party. Its loudest mouthpieces are persistently reiterating the need to reform or repeal the 13th Amendment while the LTTE spectre has been predictably resurrected to create a fear psychosis about a provincial administration system that has been in existence for 26 years.
The Government’s constituent ally, the JHU, last week introduced the 21st Amendment to the Constitution as a private member’s bill, a piece of legislation that seeks to completely repeal the 13th Amendment. Analysts say the strange numbering of the amendment is no accident and likely points to a JHU pre-arrangement with the regime, that will bring the 19th and 20th Amendments to dilute the powers of the provinces and finally support the JHU bill, perhaps based on a ‘conscience vote’ to do away with the system altogether.
But all indications are that none of this will be quite the cakewalk the regime anticipated. New Delhi has come down hard on Colombo over its moves to dilute the 13th Amendment and has made it clear both privately and publicly that India would consider any such move a violation of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987.
The scheduled visit of Indian National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon in July will likely focus significantly on the 13th Amendment, while a visit of Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid is also being planned in New Delhi, ahead of the September poll deadline. New Delhi is no longer mincing its words either.
It has hitherto opted for quiet bilateral diplomacy and behind the scenes, manoeuvres to try to get Colombo to live up to its commitments to the Tamil people in the post war context. The statement by the Indian External Affairs Ministry was a public admonishment of Colombo’s attempts to renege on its promises to India and Indian Premier Manmohan Singh’s candid displeasure was not only expressed to the visiting TNA delegation last week but also made public very quickly in the Indian media.
The Left erupts
Yet, the storm building across the Palk Strait is nothing compared the political tsunami President Mahinda Rajapaksa is facing within his own coalition ever since he mooted his proposals to dilute the 13th Amendment. On Tuesday, the ruling coalition’s Leftist parties and Cabinet Ministers went public about their vehement opposition to the move to delay a political solution to the island’s ethnic struggle.
Cabinet Ministers Rajitha Senaratne, D.E.W. Gunesekera, Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Tissa Vitharana were joined by SLFP strongman and MP Reginald Cooray and Communist Party MP Chandrasiri Gajadheera at a dramatic media conference at the Lanka Sama Samaja Party Headquarters on Tuesday. Refusing to play nice about their hard-line coalition allies the JHU and the NFF, the Ministers boldly called the move what it was – a blatant attempt to scuttle devolution and assert Sinhala political hegemony over the people of the North.
National Integration Minister Nanayakkara was the most outspoken over the move, saying the JHU and the NFF were opposing the 13th Amendment because neither party could ever contest polls in the north. “Why can’t they? That is because they pursue a Sinhala only ideology,” Nanayakkara said.
The Minister said that the solution of these two parties according to their political ideology was to prevent the Northern election. “Their path to unifying Sri Lanka is to keep the North permanently under the rule of the Sinhala administration. That is why they want a military officer as a Governor of that province. They want a military administered North,” Minister Nanayakkara charged.
The Ministers called for a strengthening of the provincial council system and vowed to defeat the constitutional amendment to dilute the powers of the provinces using a silent majority they claimed resided within the ruling party. The Leftist groups are also expected to hold discussions with the TNA in the coming days regarding the proposals to dilute the 13th Amendment. Less vociferously, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress also remains adamant to oppose the Government move to reduce the powers of the provinces.
Acting with customary bombastic haste, the ruling regime has painted itself into a corner with regard to the Northern poll and the need to dilute the powers of the provincial councils. Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya believes that signs are rampant that a poll will be declared in the coming days and has gone so far as to put a date on the election in the North.
With its options running out, the Government’s only hope may be to go through with the poll and wait until the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo scheduled for November is concluded before it attempts to tinker with the 13th Amendment again. That is if saner counsel prevails. If on the other hand it chooses to pursue the current more reckless course with regard to amending the 13th before elections in the North, it will put everything on the line – CHOGM, its relationship with New Delhi – and perhaps even the survival of its own coalition.
COURTESY:Daily FT