2 November 2024 12:56 am Views - 582
The attempt by the leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Udaya Gammanpila to score brownie points from the voters by embarrassing the government using the two committees appointed by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe on the terrorist attacks launched on the Easter Sunday in 2019 seems to have become a damp squib.
Firstly, he was not supported even by the leaders of the Sarwajana Balaya under which he is contesting the November 14 Parliamentary election. Also, his effort was rejected outright by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo who is the leader of the community that was affected most by the terrorist attacks, as an attempt to gain political mileage.
Besides, Gammanpila’s attempt was eclipsed by the stories about a possible threat of a similar attack on the Israeli tourists in Arugam Bay in the East. However, it opens up avenues for us to look into the various committees, commissions, and other mechanisms that were established by the leaders of the country with the professed objective of fact finding or investigating into various issues, but ultimately without the country gaining anything.
Delaying tactics
We in this column last week catalogued such mechanisms instituted by the past Presidents to look into the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks. A Presidential committee, a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC), and a Presidential commission had handed over their reports to the relevant authorities before Wickremesinghe appointed the two committees. And 12 fundamental rights cases were heard in the Supreme Court, 108 cases against various defendants in the Colombo District Court and cases against 25 suspects who were alleged to have had links with the terrorists in the Colombo High Court were still pending.
President Wickremesinghe told Germany’s Deutsche Welle Channel that six major countries had produced reports after conducting investigations into the crime and questioned what more to be done. However, he appointed two committees. And suggested to appoint another PSC as well as a probe by the Scotland Yard police.
Electoral reforms are another issue that has produced so many committees, commissions and PSCs. The haste in which these committees and commissions are appointed with a huge fuss and the way they are allowed to die unattended and unnoticed is outrageous, as it is the public funds that is being wasted on them.
A PSC was appointed during President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Presidency to reform the electoral system and it had recommended to formulate a electoral system combining the First-Past-the-Post (FPP) system and the Proportional Representation (PR) system. A similar mixed system was again recommended by another PSC in 2006, during Mahinda Rajapaksa Presidency. Interestingly, both committees were headed by Dinesh Gunawardene who held ministerial portfolios under both presidents.
However, laws were not promulgated according to the recommendations of these PSCs until 2012 when the Local Government Elections Act was amended. Yet another five years lapsed when the Yahapalana Government finally completed the delimitation process in 2017. The mixed system was tested on the ground for the first time at the local polls in February 2018.
It turned out to be a muddled method as the collective strength of the Opposition parties in many councils was higher than that of the ruling party. Hence even Mahinda Rajapaksa, the leader of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) suggested that the electoral system be re-amended, despite his party having won 239 out of 340 local councils. The then Chairman of the Elections Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya too made similar suggestions.
New constitution
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on September 20, 2020 appointed a nine-member expert committee headed by President’s Counsel Romesh de Silva to draft a new Constitution. Since the Constitution contains electoral systems as well, it was expected that the draft would contain provisions for the reformation of such systems.
However, while this committee was expected to hand over its report in June 2021, a third PSC was appointed for electoral reforms in May 2021 during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Presidency, this time too under the chairmanship of Dinesh Gunawardena who was again a minister. The report of this committee which also recommended the mixed electoral system was tabled in Parliament on June 22, 2022, amidst the Aragalaya. Nevertheless, the committee did not seem to have considered the lapses in the LG Election Act that were evident after the 2018 elections.
Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the President in July the same year. He then told the professionals at a meeting on September 9 that he was planning to bring in a new Constitution and to appoint a PSC to amend the electoral laws. Questions were raised as to what then happened to the reports of the experts committee and the PSC appointed by Gotabaya Rajapaksa?
However, the Opposition parties accused that Wickremesinghe was planning to postpone the approaching local government elections, in the guise of reforming election laws.
Over a month later on October 26, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe requested the Speaker to appoint a PSC for electoral reforms. Again, in December, amidst the controversy over the attempts to postpone the LG polls, he discussed the matter with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena. Once the government succeeded in postponing the local elections, the electoral reforms too were forgotten. It was only in October 16, last year that the matter came up again when Wickremesinghe all of a sudden appointed a nine-member commission headed by former Chief Justice Priyasath Dep for the purpose.
Premier Gunawardene as if he was not aware of this commission, convened a meeting of political parties two days later to achieve the same objective. Funnily enough, the Cabinet, as if rejecting all these efforts, decided on March 18, this year to instruct the Legal Draftsman to draft legislation to introduce the mixed electoral system. The Information Department ironically attributed the decision to the Regulations of Elections Expenditure Act, and not any relevant past PSCs or the Priyasath Dep Commission. It must be noted that six months had passed without any follow-up action since then, when Wickremesinghe left office.
Similarly, a plethora of committees and commissions have been appointed by successive Presidents for the resolution of the ethnic problem and resolution of human rights issues, especially on missing persons, without any tangible outcomes. Ultimately, it was the people who had to bear the cost which ran into millions, if not billions of rupees.