Well of hypocrisy

Thursday 23rd February, 2023

One’s gorge rises at the sight of cheap theatrics in Parliament, which has become a metaphor for hypocrisy. On Tuesday, the SJB MPs invaded the Well of the House, carrying placards and shouting slogans in protest against the government’s efforts to delay the local government elections. The dissident SLPP MPs cheered them on from the sidelines. The protesting MPs’ consternation is understandable, and their show must have gladdened the hearts of all those who treasure franchise and cleave to democratic norms and values. But are these MPs genuinely concerned about the people’s rights? The answer is an emphatic no; their hypocrisy stinks to high heaven. Before putting on Tuesday’s show, they should have tendered an apology to the public for having aided and abetted a conspiracy to postpone elections a few years ago. Most of the SJB MPs who have taken up the cudgels for the people’s right to vote were in the UNP-led Yahapalana government, which introduced the Provincial Council Elections (Amendment) Act in 2017 to postpone the PC polls indefinitely with the help of the SLFP, the JVP, the TNA and the SLMC. They knew that the amendment Bill had been stuffed with a slew of sections, at the committee stage, but that did not deter them from voting for it.

The Rajapaksas and their hangers-on in the Joint Opposition, in 2017, let out howls of protests when the PC polls were put off, and endeared themselves to the public. Today, they have thrown their weight behind President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is doing his damnedest to postpone the mini polls because both the SLPP and the UNP are aware that an election at this juncture is bound to be their undoing. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa plays dumb when reporters question him on the government’s plan to delay the LG polls, and cuts a pathetic figure in the process. There is no way he can absolve himself of the blame for this sorry state of affairs. SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam’s criticism of President Wickremesinghe’s determined bid to put off elections reminds us of a ruse employed by pickpockets, who get their accomplices to catch, beat and take them away, when they fail to make good their escape so that the real pursuers will not be able to lay a hand on them.

The SLPP dissidents make themselves out to be an order of knights on mission to protect the people’s franchise, but they unflinchingly went along with the Rajapaksa government on its decision to postpone the local council polls last year.

The subjugation of the electoral process to the political agenda of the President is symptomatic of a crippling malady that Sri Lankan democracy is stricken with. The executive presidency has, like a cancer, eaten into the vitals of all other key state institutions including the legislature, and debilitated them. The 21st Amendment was hailed as a progressive law that would help strengthen the independent commissions and depoliticise the state service. But the Election Commission is groaning under the President’s boots. The Government Printer has become a handmaid of the President, who also has the Secretary to the Finance Ministry on a string. The National Police Commission has become a big joke and the IGP a lackey of the Executive. The police act as the President’s Brownshirts. The less said about the Attorney General’s Department, the better. The state prosecutor is facilitating the persecution of the political enemies of the government in power by using the PTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) against them.

At this rate, the Executive President will be able to do away with all elections with the help of the Secretary to the Finance Ministry and the Government Printer, and suppress people’s protests by deploying the police and the military.

The SLPP-UNP juggernaut bearing down on the people has to be stopped. Hence the need for an election. Whether a ray of hope will emanate from Hulftsdorp for the hapless public languishing in the depths of despair, or they will lose faith in the judicial process as well, and be left with no alternative but to take to the streets to vent their anger and seek justice remains to be seen.