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Amidst confusion over the 20th Amendment to the Constitution and tug-of-war by different parties to reach a solution, Deputy Minister of Highways and Investment Promotion Eran Wickramaratna is of the view that a mixed proportional system, where vital issues would be solved through the electoral reforms is the way forward. An expert on economy, Mr. Wickramaratna describes how his government is faced with a challenge to protect the country’s name amidst heavy loans taken at high interest rates. Excerpts

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Electoral reforms will not change wrong people entering politics

There was no proof that the governor had direct involvement...




QWe know that a large number of  organizations and civil activist groups supported to change the previous regime and worked to bring a UNP led government under President Maithripala Sirisena last January. But the same groups are now strongly demanding to introduce the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. In this backdrop there is an allegation by certain Opposition groups that the delay was due to UNPs reluctance to introduce this vital amendment. What is your comment?

The UNP is for reforms. We promised this in the 100-day programme of President Maithripala Sirisena and we want to reform the electoral system. But the question is what is the 20 Amendment and as a result there has been various views. 

When we talk about supporting 20A we need to know what we mean by 20A. The present proposal the Cabinet has approved is for a mixed system. In the mixed system, on the Proportional Representative (PR) System there are going to be 100 seats and on the First-Past-the-Post (FPP) system there are going to be 120 seats. Out of the PR 100, it is suggested that 25 are on the National List and the balance 75 on the District PR. This was the proposal Prime Minister put forward to the Cabinet which it approved.


QDo you think that, what has been proposed as the 20th Amendment is sufficient or need further expansion adding foreign experiences to it?
We need to understand what are we actually trying to reform or what is the problem we are trying to address. I think the debate has lost sight of that. 
Many people come and say that one of the problems they are trying to address is that you need vast resources to contest in a district and re-elected on Preferential System. 

That is true, but actually I think to handle the question about campaign financing and campaign expenditure you can’t use electoral reforms. 
What you actually need in that situation is campaign-financing and campaign funding laws. 
 

"It is true that the previous regime had inability to attract foreign investments. As a result, to keep the economy moving, they had a public investment programme.."

So that there will be limits on what people spend and candidates will have to make declarations on how they obtained the money. 

And those laws need to be in place and laws need to be enforced. People talk about that there are candidates who have large resources to go around and buy votes. 

That they can do in a larger geography and they can continue to do in a smaller geography unless we have campaign laws on funding and financing basically in place. Electoral reforms will not solve that problem. That’s my view.

The other often given reason is that there is lot of competition among members of the same party for preferential votes. 
 

"The people were expecting some benefit at the end of the war and that benefit did not filter to the common man and I think we have been successful actually distributing it."

That competition, sometime lead to violence between two candidates from the same party. 

That is really a law and order problem. You cannot solve a law and order problem by electoral reforms, I think a law and order problem has to be resolved by the application of law and proper functioning of law enforcement authorities, particularly police and an independent authority.  I think again trying to put the burden on reforming the electoral system to resolve that problem is a misapplication. 

To some extent I think this debate has that problem. So, we need to understand, what we are trying to solve. 

The mix system, to some extent solves that problem. In that, people are saying we like to have an MP from our electorate. And if you have FPP system and you have single electorates that will solve that. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing that’s what people want and that’s the way to resolve that. Then if you look at that system you have the opportunity of voting for the candidate of your choice. 
 

"That is what the exchange differential, that’s how the exchange rate gets adjusted. But what the government had done in the past is to artificially hold the rupee-dollar rate and as a result Sri Lanka exports have suffered"

The problem with the present proposal is in the PR systrem-for example 125 on the FPP and 100 on the PR is that PR only work for the 100. 

So, it is a mixed majoritarian system. What I personally would prefer is a Mixed Proportional System -that is a system where a voter is given two votes. 
He cast one vote for the party, whom he thinks has the best programme to govern the country. Then he has a second vote looking at his electorate he lives in to cast the vote for the particular person, whom he prefers. 

You could have someone contesting on the UNP, SLFP or the JVP or any other party. You do not make a decision on the party but on individual who is the best person to represent you in Parliament. 

Ultimately that will give the FPP result and then you have PR working on the national basis on the total vote of the country and then you will make sure Parliament reflects total proportionality and you will top up the FPP based on the result of the national PR. 

I think the two-vote system is far more preferable than even the system now being proposed, which is basically a mixed majoritarian system.

 
QBut one might argue that this would be more complicated? 
I do not agree and I don’t think it is complicated at all because even in the present system, you are deciding on which party you are going to vote for. After you do that you make three more choices-three more votes. 

You have to scrutinise the candidates from the whole of the district. So you end researching 15 to 20 candidates before deciding on which three people you are going to vote for. When you go to the polling booth you can remember the party you are going to vote but you can’t decide the three people to whom you are going to vote for. You have to remember their names and you have to remember their numbers. This is more complicated. The two vote system is easier. You vote for the party and you have your candidate from your local electorate.

The benefit of this system is that you might make two choices. 

One, at the national level, who should govern the country and one for a better candidate at the local level-who may be from a different party. 

I don’t think it is complicated at all and people are intelligent and people can make that choice. This is a time tested electoral system which have been successfully tested and followed both in the East and the West. 

Countries like Germany and the New Zealand use while it is also used in countries like Taiwan and South Korea.


QThe 20th Amendment also has proposed importance of getting professionals to politics through the National List. But in the past we saw that very often this was used to bring political henchmen of the ruling parties to Parliament. Being a National List MP do you think this situation can be changed with the 20th Amendment?
We need better candidates. Unfortunately none of the proposals that were forwarded so far on this issue are being discussed. There are no qualifications, actually as to who should contest at an election. It is being left open and as you have rightly pointed out even the National List has been left open and therefore parties have put all kinds of people on the National List with different backgrounds. 

I think there is a call in the country for better candidates and my view is that if a young person is entering politics, we should insist on having some level of education; either they should have a professional qualification or a University qualification. 

But if people who are older and let’s say 40 years or something, they need not have formal education in terms of professional or University education, because they have a lot to offer too because after all they too have come through the school of life or the University of life and that is very important in politics. But what I can say is that none of these Amendments will ensure that the quality of candidates will improve.


QWhile many experts think that 20th Amendment is vital for good governance and democracy, the general public feels that it would help clean Parliament of corrupt politicians about whom the educated public have a negative impression. What is your view on this?
While speaking on the importance of education and experience, the overriding criteria is that you should have people of character coming into Parliament because you can be educated and still you can be just a rogue. 

Education doesn’t solve all the problems about human nature. Therefore we need people of good character coming to Parliament. It is very difficult to legislate on people’s character but the political parties have to take the responsibility that they will nominate people, who are not accused of basically wrongdoing, breaking the law or being accused of dealing in businesses not acceptable to society.

Today a lot of people talk about people who are dealing with drugs and people who are dealing with illicit alcohol and people who are suspected to be involved in murders and crimes. 

I think the political parties have to take a hard decision. Even if people are not convicted by the law, they cannot be nominated to Parliament.


QSome sections of the SLFP argue that under the UNP government the economy of the country has collapsed. They support this citing the depreciation of rupee as an example. As an economic expert what is the true picture of our economy?
We need to recognise this is an interim government and it has many parties including the SLFP. And it is strange that the SLFP could accuse the UNP in terms of the performance of the economy. 

We know that the economy is continuing to grow and GDP is growing at a rate of 7 per cent and has grown in the first half of the year. We have been able to do some significant things soon after the elections and one of which is brining the cost of living down to the  lowest cost of living that we had probably in the last two decades-with an exception of one particular month was in March and April 2015. 

We had inflation running at 0.6 and then at 0.1 in the last two months, the lowest inflation probably in two decades. 

So, the cost of living has come down and it is possible because the cost of energy has been brought down especially the cooking gas, petrol, diesel and kerosene.

The people were expecting some benefit at the end of the war and that benefit did not filter to the common man and I think we have been successful actually distributing it.

The other problem in the economy is that the buying power is low and Government servants have been agitating for a long time for an increase in salary. 
If you look at household income it has gone up considerably. When people talk about progress of the economy they often bring up the thing to do with the infrastructure. 

Our focus is on the household income and our focus is going to be in the future of individuals. 

This is an interim government; we will be shortly announcing our manifesto on what new steps we will be taking on the economy. 

That the depreciation of the rupee is a sign of weakness is not true. The exchange rate should reflect the interest deferential between Sri Lanka and a foreign country. 

That is what the exchange differential, that’s how the exchange rate gets adjusted. But what the government had done in the past is to artificially hold the rupee-dollar rate and as a result Sri Lanka exports have suffered badly. 

Sri Lanka’s exports have basically gone from about 30 per cent of GDP to about 14, 15 per cent of the GDP and that’s a major concern. We should do to make our export competitive. But you cannot make your export competitive without have competitive exchange rate. I think that the exchange rate policy is in the right direction.


QThere is also an argument that the excessive loans obtained by the previous government at very high interest rates would be major burden on the future economy. There are predictions that with the repayment starting this year the coming years are going to be economically very unstable. What is your view?
With regard to the debt issue the previous government took large debts and now the payment have to be made. 

And what is the true situation of this? It is true that the previous regime had inability to attract foreign investments. As a result, to keep the economy moving, they had a public investment programme, which was about 6 per cent of the GDP. 

Now that came largely out of foreign currency borrowing at market rates. It was a very risky strategy they had adopted and these were borrowings and therefore the repayments on them have to be made. 

The new government has a huge responsibility and challenge to make sure that the country meets its obligations and make repayment on time, that is why the policy has to shift to make enough exports and to attract investments, than take loans. The risk is distributed among the investor and the country.


QThe issue of Governor of the Central bank was a black mark on your government. What should the UNP do to prove that there was no foul play?
On this question the UNP has nothing to prove, because the Governor of the Central Bank is a professional, who has basically sat in that office. And the governor of the Central Bank has been accused of by some segments having done wrong because his son-in-law has been connected to a primary dealer. 
And there is an issue of ‘conflict of interest’ and that is being investigated. And the issue, whether the governor has done wrong is still an open question. Preliminary report on this was submitted to Parliament. 

There was no proof that the governor had direct involvement but, because there is a conflict of interest it has been referred to Parliamentary Committee. 
The investigation is underway at the moment and we will know what the conclusion of that investigation more definitively, whether there is a problem or not. 
Meanwhile, there is also other allegations made, some of which went before the Supreme Court of the country and there has been no determination that there was any wrongdoing. 

Being a member of the investigative committee of Parliament I would not want to comment beyond that at this point and until the investigation is completed.