The election manifestos of the three main Presidential candidates were released last week. On August 26, the National People’s Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake released his manifesto titled ‘ A thriving Nation, A Beautiful Life’.
Then, on August 29, President Ranil Wickremesinghe released his manifesto under the title ‘The Five Years of Winning the Country with Ranil ‘ and the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa released his under the title ‘ A Win for All.’
The three of them prioritized their plans to rescue Sri Lanka from the economic crisis and have presented proposals to find solutions to most of the problems facing the country and its people. But it is doubtful if ordinary people would care to read these lengthy declarations with patience.
President Wickremesinghe’s firm conviction is that there is no other way for economic recovery except to continue the economic restructuring measures that have been carried out for the past two years in accordance with the agreement his government made with the International Monetary Fund ( IMF ). Speaking as if the other two main candidates would not carry out those restructuring measures effectively, he is asking the people to give him a five-year mandate.
Premadasa and Anura Kumara have also announced that they will continue with the agreement with the IMF with some amendments, but will hold talks with the International lender to reduce taxes that burden the people.
Therefore, whoever becomes the new president, it is clear that his action plan regarding the economic recovery will be carried out in accordance with the IMF agreement.
The main purpose of this article is to briefly look at what the three leaders have said in their manifestos on the issues related to the new constitution and the ethnic (Tamil) problem. Long before the announcement of the election, all three candidates had expressed their positions on a political solution to the ethnic problem and they mentioned the same in their manifestos as well.
Although Anura Kumara has been saying for a long time that the NPP government will bring a new constitution, what he has said in the manifesto was unexpected. He says that the constitutional drafting process carried out during the government (2015-2019) led by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be speedily completed and that political and administrative powers will be shared with each local government institution, district and province so that all people can participate in governance. The manifesto makes no reference to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
Meanwhile, President Wickremesinghe has said that as per the 13th Amendment, powers will be devolved to the Provincial Councils. He has mentioned that the powers which the central government had taken back from the provinces will be given back to them and the responsibility of deciding on the police powers for the provincial councils will be handed over to the new parliament.
The President, who has promised to give importance to national reconciliation, has said that the Truth and Reconciliation Act will be passed and the report of the Nawaz Commission on Missing Persons will be implemented.
The SJB leader Premadasa says his alliance is committed to changing the present constitution and the formulation of a new constitution with proper consultation with religious dignitaries, political parties representing the Parliament , and members of the civil society.
” In that process, our principle is to convert our current political system to a parliamentary system and with maximum devolution based on 13th amendment under one country,” his manifesto says.
Further, he said his government would be committed to fully implementing the current constitution including the 13th amendment till the passage of the new constitution and reaffirmed the commitment to provincial councils by not retracting the powers granted to them and instead, strengthening the developments made at the provincial level.
When it comes to the aboliltion of the Presidential system, while Anura Kumara has said that his government will abolish the executive Presidential system and establish a parliamentary system of government and create a non-executive presidency, Wickramasinghe has said that the responsibility of drafting a new constitution will be entrusted to the new parliament that will be elected in the general election that will be held following the Presidential election.
The President also said that the new Parliament should decide whether to abolish the Executive Presidency or not.
This is nothing new for him to say. Premadasa and Anura Kumara have also been saying for several months that the responsibility of deciding on the abolition of the Presidential system should be handed over to the next parliament.
Although there have been talks about the abolition of the Executive Presidency for nearly three decades, no tangible attempts have been made in this regard so far. Whatever the three main candidates have promised in their manifestos, people certainly have strong doubts about their political integrity.
Also, an important question is whether it will be possible to find consensus among the political parties in the next Parliament on a new constitution, given the current political landscape and the level of support among the people.
An important point to note is that the three leaders have largely expressed similar positions on issues related to the national ethnic problem. With the Presidential election still three weeks away, a largely non-ethnic trend can be observed in the campaigns of major political parties or coalitions this time around. This is completely different from the situation seen during the 2019 Presidential election.
There is an opportunity in the current situation that the Tamil political parties can exploit effectively.
But it is unfortunate that the many of the North and East Tamil political parties do not care to use it. Most of the Tamil parties which are demanding a permanent solution to the national ethnic problem are not only urging the Sri Lankan government to fully implement the 13th Amendment but also pleading with New Delhi to pressurise Colombo to do so. The leaders of these parties should not think that their responsibility is over just by asking for India’s help. They must work together to use the available opportunities to persuade or pressurise the government to fully implement the 13th Amendment.
A political strategy must be employed to ensure a conducive environment. Now that the three main candidates have taken a favourable position on the 13th Amendment, the leaders of the Tamil parties should hold talks with them and strive to obtain assurance that whoever becomes the President, none of them should oppose any future efforts to implement the amendment. In today’s context, that can be a prudent approach.
This columnist is no fan of the 13th Amendment. But what is wrong with the Tamil parties adopting such a strategy? After all they consider that 13th amendment as a first step in their journey towards a permanent political settlement?
There is also a significant section within the Tamil polity that says that the 13th Amendment should not be accepted in any way. Do the Tamil people today have the political clout to force any future government to bring back one with similar or lesser provision if the amendment is abolished?
This question is not yet answered. Dream world politics is easy. But it is important for the Tamil people today to think about a practical approach.
Anura Kumara has mentioned in his election manifesto that his government will bring a new constitution by completing the constitution drafting process which was carried out during the ‘ Yahapalanya ‘ government. The then Leader of the Opposition, the late R. Sampanthan and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran claimed during that process, that a more comprehensive devolution proposal were explored beyond the provisions of the 13th amendment indicating their perception that there was no need to talk about the 13th Amendment any more.
Due to the change of regime, unfortunately, the constitution drafting process could not continue. However, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe submitted an interim report to Parliament. There are also Tamil politicians who are of the view that the lack of specific reference to the 13th Amendment in the Anura Kumara’s manifesto is not a defect as the he said NPP would complete the stalled constitutional drafting process.
But in a situation where even the 13th Amendment has not been properly implemented for more than three decades, Tamil political parties have been nursing the hope of going beyond the amendment.
This was a ploy used by former President Ranasinghe Premadasa, who fiercely opposed India’s intervention in the Sri Lankan imbroglio and not to implement 13th Amendment.
A Parliamentary Select Committee headed by the then Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Member of Parliament Mangala Munasinghe was appointed to explore ways to resolve the ethnic conflict in the context of the resumption of the civil war after the withdrawal of Indian forces during Premadasa’s regime.
Since then, Tamil parties have been believing that they could go beyond the 13th Amendment. That was a strategy used by Premadasa to avoid actually implementing the amendment.
Thereafter Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa took other initiatives while ensuring that the 13th Amendment was not properly implemented. Mahinda Rajapaksa never released the report of the All-Party Representatitive Committee headed by Professor Tissa Vitharana.
Taking all these experiences as a lesson, it would be prudent for the leaders of the Tamil parties to adopt a strategy that would ensure full implementation of the 13th Amendment for the time being.