By

N Sathiya Moorthy

Despite claims to the contrary by the SLFP leader of the ruling UPFA the controversy over the need and demand for abolishing/down-sizing Executive Presidency has refused to die. The latest to join issue, if it could be dubbed so, are two partners in the UPFA, as has been the case in the recent past.

The traditional Left ally in the Government, Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) leader and Minister Dinesh Gunawardane has said in a media interview that Parliament does not have adequate powers to participate in governance. He should know. After all, he is the Chief Government Whip in Parliament.

The National Freedom Front (NFF) of Minister Wimal Weerawansa has gone a step further. Not stopping with the abolition of the Executive Presidency, It wants a new Constitution, to boot. Furthermore, it has claimed a signed agreement with the SLFP leadership. NFF leaders have cited senior SLFP ministers, including Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa as signatories to the pact. The SLFP has neither denied, nor clarified the NFF claims.

If such was the case, what stops the Government from talking to the TNA? After all, none of the demands, including those from the UNP Opposition, on the abolition of the Executive Presidency, has been characterised as the national problem. The ethnic issue alone has been, instead.

If the SLFP leader of the Government could talk to the NFF, which is among the junior-most partners in the UPFA, what stops it from reviving the talks with the TNA? After all, the TNA talks had reached a fairly advanced stage, and with greater chances of success, when the Government unilaterally and rather unceremoniously walked out on the TNA, and without notice.

The Government, having characterised the talks initially as official or semi-official, later turned on to say it was only party-level talks between the SLFP and the TNA. Be it as it may, it does not sill justify or explain the sudden withdrawal wholly.

Where The TNA Faltered?

The TNA is not without blame, either. It committed the cardinal mistake of backing the US resolution at UNHRC-Geneva, and in public, even while seeking a political solution to the ethnic issue within a united Sri Lanka. Like many others, the TNA may have concluded that the UNHRC process was aimed at forcing the Sri Lankan Government into yielding more on the power devolution front.

The TNA also began with the post-war premise that the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, having won two-thirds majority in Parliament, had the power, but not the will, to facilitate constitutional amendments required for implementing a political solution. For once, the TNA forgot that those seats were won not on a devolution agenda but possibly against it.

At least, the likes of JHU and NFF had clear ideas on devolution issues. So has had the post-poll UPFA partner in the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC). They did not either wholly or partially back the TNA’s known positions. The TNA did not (want to) provide for them all, while adding up parliamentary numbers.

The specious argument that the TNA could lent seats and votes to replace those opposed to the TNA brand of power devolution would not hold, either. In the post-war presidential polls of 2010, the TNA did not maintain neutrality, leave alone supporting the candidacy of incumbent President Rajapaksa.

Instead, the TNA opposed President Rajapaksa along with the rest of the political Opposition. Considering that the opponent was Sarath Fonseka, the commander of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) at the height ‘Eelam War IV’, the TNA position also defied logic and justification.

In the end, Fonseka had the Tamil votes nearly double of what the TNA would get in the parliamentary polls only two months later but not the presidency. Political analysts have since said that the TNA’s illogical backing for Fonseka might have been a contributory factor for the seven percentage point victory margin of President Rajapaksa.

Intra-Tamil Perception Differences

That being the case, for the TNA to expect politician Rajapaksa to back them the whole hog on power-devolution issues, would be like his going against his poll mandate. No politician would want to commit electoral harakari of the kind, particularly when he is also the leader of what could well be now the single largest party in the country.

As a politician, no one in President Rajapaksa’s place could be expected to sacrifice his Sinhala nationalist voter-support, which also provides the victory cushion, in favour of a non-committed/untested TNA promise of parliamentary support and Tamil voter-backing. A bird in the hand is after all worth more than the dozens in the bush.

As the Head of State and Government, no one in President Rajapaksa’s place would likewise want to risk ethnic peace and amity, by granting Tamils what the TNA wants without getting in return the kind of assurances/reassurances that the Sinhala nationalists expect. The Sri Lankan State too can do with.

The fact remains that internal differences within the TNA on power-devolution issues are showing up even more now than in the weeks and months immediately after the conclusion of Eelam War IV and the elimination of the LTTE. With the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora and the US/UNHRC being over-active, the gaps in intra-Tamil perceptions and expectations is only widening, back home in Sri Lanka.

The party is divided along conceptual lines, among separatists (who know what exactly they want – and how), Tamil nationalists (who do not know what to settle for), and Tamil moderates (who know what they want, but not how to reach there). The TNA has to concede that it cannot carry them all together on the same boat, and expect to reach the destination – about which is there the greatest of all differences.

It is also over these differences that the Sri Lankan State, and the Sinhala majority (including the otherwise TNA-friendly Sinhala parties) have their doubts at times, and suspicions. The TNA thus needs to convince them all that they preach what they practice, and vice versa. The dictum applies to the Sinhala polity and the Government of the day, even more.

Administrative Experience

One striking gap in the Tamil/TNA perception on power devolution is the total lack of politico-administrative experience of its leaders, including all Ministers in the elected Northern Provincial Council (NPC). Most of them are strong on the politics of power devolution and all of them are short on administrative experience.

The TNA is thus strong on concepts, but short on suggesting workable solutions within the existing scheme before seeking more. It is a dangerous trend, too, as they may not even be able to manage, if all that they demand or, even all they have been promised under 13-A – were to be given to them.

In particular, they will have to ask themselves if they are capable of enforcing on the ground their public commitment to a united Sri Lanka, if given ‘Police’ powers, as they have been demanding and as has been committed under 13-A? Will they too be requiring constitutional protection and administrative back-up, if they like the Sinhala predecessors before them in the North and East, were to be faced with separatist tendencies and ground actions? If so, what all could they be?

Even otherwise, the Tamils have long since demanded Police powers for their people to take up issues and complaints with the local police station without feeling language-constraints. It is more so in the regions where Tamil is either the only spoken language of the masses, or is among those in a bilingual area.

The Tamils also have the complaint that the Sri Lankan State is deliberately keeping their boys and girls out of the Police and military forces in the country even five years after the conclusion of the ethnic war, and also from government services too. There is some truth in it, though not the whole truth.

The LTTE had ensured through threats and killings that Tamils serving in Police and armed forces quit in a huff, and left the country. No Tamil wants to speak about it even at this distant date. When the Government is reportedly urging Tamils to join the Police force in particular, there are reports of the aspirants being persuaded by some friends and neighbours to stay away.

At a time when every Tamil in the war-affected area can do with a fixed monthly income, a government job is the best he or she can hope for. The TNA administration in the North can thus facilitate higher and early recruitment of more Tamils into the Police force and later in the armed forces of the State, and other government employment.

The TNA administrators in the North should be talking to the Government at the Centre, and the Governor nearer home. The TNA politicians should be talking to their own people, to encourage them to take up those jobs on offer. They also need to dissuade those among them discouraging job-aspirants, particularly in the Police force. This has not happened.

It is not only about the Police powers. Learning from politico-administrative experience of the past months in the North, the TNA needs to break down their conceptual demands into working parts, and propose prescriptions that are easy for the Sri Lankan State and the Sinhala majority to digest. The big pill would have to wait, or may not be required to be administered at all.

If the Government and the TNA are serious about finding a political solution, there is no escaping from the Government talking to the TNA. Nor is there a chance for the TNA to stay away from a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) of some form. If political parties and Parliament are serious about changes in the Constitution, they may after all name another PSC to study proposals and come up with drafts.
They are just not going to yield to all of the TNA’s demands, even if wholly endorsed by the leadership of President Rajapaksa. These are after all touchy political and electoral issues to most constituent parties in the ruling coalition. The Government can begin with talking to the TNA. The TNA can talk to the 31 members backing power devolution within a united Sri Lanka and others like the UNP and the JVP, too. Both are shying away from doing so therein lies the hitch, not outside of it.

Just as there cannot be Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, there cannot be an inclusive constitutional process without the TNA. There, the TNA has as much responsibility to the nation as it has been demanding rights. Inclusiveness has two sides, at the very least. Just as the Tamils want the Sri Lankan State and the Sinhala polity to be inclusive, they too have to make the right moves and noises to convince the rest that they really want to be included, and that it’s not yet another political ploy of separatist Diaspora groups, which keep pressuring the TNA all the time just as they had done with the LTTE, until the latter began overshadowing them in their exclusive department!

Courtesy:The Sunday Leader