Rank absurdities and the absence of

principle

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Expressing extreme exasperation late this week, a colleague of mine could not contain
himself regarding the paucity of ideas emerging from competing candidates in Sri
Lankas upcoming parliamentary elections.
As he reflected, generally, at least during a pre-election
period in any country, candidates and parties are
compelled to put forward their principles and policies
but what we see here is just nonsensical. Curiously
enough, much the same sentiment was expressed by
an annoyed vegetable cultivator from Wellawaya who called a regular Sinhala political
television programmes on Thursday to ask as to why the prime focus of candidates in
the electoral fray was simply to throw mud at each other?
Rudimentary choices before us

Meanwhile a prime pro-Mahinda Rajapaksa supporter and a breakaway from the

Jathika Hela Urumaya tied himself up in ungainly knots in arguing that the country
does not need national policies. The focus was on education but this argument could
be applied verbatim to any other subject. His eminently confused ramblings were that
each party should have competing policies so that the voters could chose what suits
them the best. Consequently therefore, striving for unanimity in education policies, for
example, by major political parties was not desirable.

As these rank absurdities are forced down our throats, it may fairly be questioned as
to whether these characters have taken leave of their senses, if indeed they
possessed any in the first place. But then this is not an election based on principles at
any conceivable level. It is also not an election which offers a viable choice between
political parties (or indeed, politicians) distinguished by any remarkable sense of
worth. These were past luxuries that Sri Lankans could claim to only in infinitely
gentler times. The choices before us today are far more rudimentary.

Losing sight of fundamentals

So amidst these tales told by idiots who, as the Bard reminds us, are full of sound and
fury signifying nothing even as they strut and fret upon the political stage, we are in
danger of losing sight of fundamentals. Questions of justice and accountability where
the minorities are concerned are marked by a deafening silence in the South as the
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) quite predictably makes federalism, the cornerstone of
their own manifesto.
And where is the focus of each party to bring the country back to a functional
framework of the law? Even as shameful cases such as the Trincomalee shooting of
students and the murders of seventeen aid workers in Mutur drag on wearily, the
report of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) to the court this week testifying to
the torture of ruggerite Wasim Thajudeen and the staging of his death as an accident
three years ago in Colombo is a pointer to the crippling impunity enjoyed by the
Rajapaksa regime for virtually a decade. This month also marks the two year

anniversary of the Rathupaswela incident where three civilians died as a result of the
army shooting protestors demanding clean drinking water. Victims still languish without
justice and compensation.

These are all signs that our legal system has been systematically crippled. The judicial
institution faces a threefold crisis of legitimacy, credibility and capacity. By itself, the
19th Amendment does not ensure the accountability of the Judicial Service
Commission (JSC) for instance. And it is no answer to say that the JSC, as currently
constituted, will be presumed to act justly. Processes and institutions should not
depend on individuals. Internal checks and balances must be in place despite
particular individuals in office at particular times.

The law, by itself, does not suffice

This is the same where other institutions are concerned. The paralyzing of Sri Lankas
investigative and prosecutorial agencies cannot be met by special entities such as the
Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) acting on direction of a government
committee. Instead, the focus must be to restore integrity to the various arms of the
state apparatus itself.

This week, the Cabinet decided that Bribery and Corruption commissioners
responsible for obstructing investigations would be investigated. But did it really take
almost a full seven months for this realization to dawn?
As this column had urged repeatedly, if the functionality of the Commission had been
swiftly restored in the flush of that magnificent Presidential election victory in January
2015, these complaints may now have been unnecessary.

That said, the law certainly does not suffice by and of itself. This election period has
seen (with some exceptions including Fridays shooting incident at Bloemendhal)
relatively far less election violations. It is simplistic however to attribute this purely to

the empowering of the Elections Commissioner (EC) by the 19th Amendment as

recently opined by the Sri Lanka Catholic Bishops Conference.

It was not that the EC did not have sufficient powers before under the constitutional
scheme, as judicially expanded by the Supreme Court in its heyday when responding
to issues on constitutional principle rather than with underlying political motives. To
give credit where it is due, reduced election violations are less a matter of sufficient
law and more a direct result of the change in the Presidency this year.

Slim victories and political bargaining

But apart from these slim victories, this election symbolizes crude political bargaining.
Each party manifesto is replete with promises that are unrealistic as a matter of bare
economics. The horse trading that will follow in the new Parliament with elected
representatives crossing the floor for raw power and filthy lucre is inevitable. As was
reminded last week, the 19th Amendment failed to ensure basic checks on this
betraying of the peoples mandate.

Indeed, the one thread of sanity which we may grimly hold onto is the determination of
ordinary Sri Lankan voters who, despite all odds, persist in showing grit and guts
wholly lacking in their representatives. And one is reduced to veritably grinding ones
teeth when pompous politicians exuding insincerity from every pore, hold forth on how
they will relieve the burden of the poor innocent villager.

The time for both innocence and credulity in this land is now long past. Let us be clear
at least on that.

Posted by Thavam