The emergency
cabinet meeting aimed at abolishing the executive presidency failed to produce
any results. However it speaks volumes
about the sudden desire to abolish the executive presidency developing in all
quarters of the political spectrum. There is lack of clarity on who called for
the cabinet meeting, but it is clear that such a sudden meeting wouldn’t have
been possible unless there was some agreement between both President and the
Prime Minister.
The abolition
of the executive presidency has been in the political debate since the death of
President Ranasinghe Premadasa.
Chandrika Kumaratunga, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithripala Sirisena, all had the
abolition of the executive presidency as a main item in their election
manifestos. Some argue that the executive presidency is good for the country,
but if that is so its abolition would not have been an attractive theme for
election manifestos.
All
Presidents have promised good things for the country at the time of elections,
but done what is good for them after getting elected. And that has been the
fate of this abolition idea so far. Now it has been at least half abolished
through the nineteenth amendment. In practice what we have now is more like a
quasi-executive presidency as most of its powers have been transferred to the Parliament. As a result its abolition has become easier
than before.
The original
nineteenth amendment draft envisaged creating almost a non-executive
presidency. However due to the Supreme Court determination and resistance from
the then Joint Opposition in the Parliament it was a much different version
which was finally passed and it has created a number of new issues. Accordingly
even a future government will find it difficult to rule the country because of
the possible friction between the Parliament and the President.
By now it is
well accepted that the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution in its present
form is troublesome and needs modifications. However any modification will
involve either transferring powers from the President to the Parliament or vice
versa and will not be practically easy even if the next President and the Prime
Minister are from the same political party.
Whatever
prompted the recent emergency cabinet meeting meant for initiating abolition of
the executive presidency was once again not in the interest of the country, but
to safeguard the self-interests of those who initiated it. Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe is now pushed to the wall in the face of mounting pressure from a
sizable faction of his party to nominate Sajith Premadasa as the presidential
candidate. Incumbent President is not in a position to contest for another
term. The move is likely to have even the blessings of former President Mahinda
Rajapaksa because he is constitutionally prevented from running for presidency
again.
The JVP’s
recent move to abolish the executive presidency through the proposed twentieth
amendment would have been an excellent opportunity to resolve the issue. The
move did not find the support of the Prime Minister Wickremesinghe probably
because of two reasons. Firstly because he had the ambition of getting into the
high post himself and secondly because he thought such a move would facilitate Mahinda
Rajapaksa to capture the governmental power through the Parliament.
However now
it seems too late to introduce any constitutional amendment before the presidential
election. It is unlikely that whoever is elected as the next Executive
President will soon work towards abolishing his own position. The only option
will be to modify the nineteenth amendment to remove unwanted friction between
a future President and the Prime Minister which is again will not be an easy
task.
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