Clash of mandates – Island

The process of submitting candidacies for the general elections scheduled for November 14 is currently underway. It is widely believed that the person who becomes president has a much greater chance of leading his party to victory in the next general election. But anything is possible in politics, where victories are not uncommon. What will happen if a party other than President Dissanayake’s NPP wins the upcoming parliamentary polls?

Dissanayake is one of the fiercest critics of the executive presidency, which his party, the JVP, has condemned as a source of evil. However, after taking the oath of office as president, he decided to do what his predecessors had done; he used the President’s much-despised executive power to prematurely dissolve Parliament in order to assert control over it and consolidate his position.

There is a compelling argument that the last parliament had to be dissolved because the NPP, with only three members, needed to secure legislative power in general elections to implement President Dissanayake’s policies. The question, however, is whether the mandate given to the president takes precedence over the mandate of the political party controlling the parliament. There is one more argument for the premature dissolution of the last parliament; the SLPP government, full of undesirables, lost its legitimacy to stay in power when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR) and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned due to mass protests. One cannot disagree that the SLPP government was full of misfits, but ironically the majority of the people who, failing to exercise proper judgment, made the mistake of electing the undesirables in the 2020 general elections, voted overwhelmingly for Dissanayake during the recently concluded term presidential election!

It is true that the SLPP government mismanaged the economy and inflicted unbearable suffering on the public, who had no choice but to move against the regime. However, if mass protests can delegitimize popularly elected administrations, future governments, including the one President Dissanayake plans to form, will also lose legitimacy in the event of continued mass protests against them.

Interestingly, Dissanayake, who managed to harness the forces that ousted President GR to realize his presidential dream, said in the run-up to the September 21 presidential elections that President GR was a victim of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s reckless borrowing from outside sources in within 13.5% billion dollars over the course of Yahapalana government (2015-2019). The biggest beneficiary of the 2022 uprising that the JVP infiltrated and manipulated was Wickremesinghe, the “reckless borrower”; became president! So Dissanayake and JVP/NPP are doubly at fault.

If political parties/alliances forming governments after winning popular mandates can be removed based on the results of the presidential elections or according to the whims and fancies of the Executive Presidents, then what are popular elections for? In 2015, following the election of President Maithripala Sirisena, the UPFA handed over control of parliament to the UNP, enabling President Sirisena to appoint Wickremesinghe as prime minister. The UNP did the same in 2019 when GR secured the presidency. In 2004, then-President Chandrika Kumaratunga dismissed the UNP-led UNF government, which had won a popular mandate about two years after the 1999 presidential elections.

In 2018, President Sirisena tried unsuccessfully to dismiss Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and then dissolve parliament. Last month, the SLPP government resigned after the election of President Dissanayake, allowing him to appoint a three-member cabinet before dissolving parliament. Presidents who have either dissolved parliament or wrested control of it have come to power immediately after taking the oath of office, promising to abolish the executive presidency or limit presidential powers that contribute to the weakening of the legislature. Their actions have contributed to the creation of an unhealthy political culture, devoid of cooperation and coexistence between the executive and legislative powers, unlike in mature democracies.

A constitutional provision prohibits the President from dissolving parliament before the end of the two and a half years of the parliament’s term. In other words, if it so happens that the President and the Prime Minister are elected from different parties, they will have to cooperate for at least two and a half years to prevent the country from descending into chaos. If so, why shouldn’t they be forced to do the same after the first two and a half years of Parliament? Opponents of the executive presidency believe that the President should be deprived of the power to prematurely dissolve parliament. This argument has some merit.

The fact that the President must control Parliament to ensure efficient government highlights a serious flaw in the Constitution. The Prime Minister becomes more powerful than the Executive President in every way when he happens to represent two different political parties and they tend to conflict. This constitutional anomaly may lead to political instability, mainly due to the insatiable desire for aggrandizement by Sri Lanka’s political leaders and their reluctance to cooperate for the benefit of the country.

Some political commentators believe that both the presidential elections and parliamentary polls should be held simultaneously. However, the possibility that two different parties will gain leadership and control in parliament cannot be ruled out. The solution is for political leaders to learn to respect the mandates received separately in the presidential and parliamentary elections and to act in the interest of the country.

It is up to the public to elect as their MPs only those who have the national interest at heart in the upcoming general elections. Otherwise, political instability is likely to occur, which will impact the economic recovery process if a party other than the NPP takes control of the legislative power or the next parliament is accidentally suspended.