The noble role of parliamentary diplomacy

In President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s address yesterday (26), many independent analysts expected that he would announce his candidature for the Presidential Elections in September or October amidst wide speculation about who the other candidates would be and whether the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna will continue its alliance with the President, or even whether Parliamentary Elections will be held first.

Since Independence in 1948, Sri Lanka has produced well-known politicians but few, if any, statesmen or stateswomen in the likes of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela or India’s Mahatma Gandhi who struggled to obtain freedom and justice for the people and sought no power or wealth for themselves as most politicians do. 

In Sri Lanka and most other countries, politicians are associated not so much with sincere public service but more so with personal gain or glory in power for their political party. In the United States, a power struggle can be seen between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump for victory in the November elections. 

Having been in mainstream politics for decades, President Biden is known to be calm with a preference for settling issues through dialogue, while Trump, especially during his 4 year term as President from 2016 to 2020, often showed how reckless and ambitious he could be. However, the latter is still on par with Biden for the November elections with independent analysts saying that this shows an extreme white supremacist trend and dictatorial tendencies with some comparing the Trump era with that of the despised German leader Adolf Hitler and current Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin. 

Through the proportional representation system or the direct election process, parliamentarians are expected to be servant-leaders of their electorates and of their country; but seldom do we see this, with promises often being broken rather than honoured. For instance, after the J.R. Jayewardene era, the party political leaders promised that they would abolish the executive presidential system since it had more negative than positive factors. For instance, in 1993, after the virtual reign of terror or horror, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who contested at the 1994 Presidential Election promised that she would abolish the Executive Presidency within 24 hours. But as we have said before, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, was it apparently for Kumaratunga. What she described as a curse apparently became a blessing for her, and she continued with the Executive Presidency with the 1999 attempt by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to kill her, apparently helping her to win the election that year. After that, the governments including the Yahapalana Government also promised to abolish the Executive Presidency but continued with it until then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to flee from the backdoor in the face of massive public agitation. 

Sunday, June 30, is the United Nations (UN) International Day of Parliamentarism. In a statement, the UN said that MPs have a responsibility and duty that goes beyond themselves and their country. The world body underscored that parliamentary diplomacy is a way to build relationships and promote cooperation between national parliaments. It noted that many parliaments encouraged their members to participate in inter-parliamentary organisations, bilateral exchanges and other parliamentary diplomacy initiatives to enable them to represent their countries’ interests, foster dialogue and cooperation with counterparts from other nations, and work towards building consensus on international issues.

According to the UN, instituting an international day for parliaments is particularly relevant today as people are losing trust in political institutions, and democracy itself is facing challenges from populist and nationalist movements. If democracy is to thrive, it is imperative that parliaments – being the cornerstone of functioning democracies – need to be strong, transparent, accountable and representative.

The International Day of Parliamentarism is a time to review the progress parliaments have made in achieving some key goals to be more representative and move with the times, including carrying out self-assessments, working to include more women and young MPs, and adapting to new technologies.