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Warning longish rant about today's tragicomedy (or jedi mind trick) of events around the special cabinet meeting on abolishing Executive Presidency & how they are reflective of some of the wider patterns that led to the reform effort in 2015 being wasted (1/17)
During all this, @MaithripalaS was silent. Where was he during the debate? what did he say? surely he wanted the cabinet meeting to happen, as head of cabinet he would have to call for it. May be tomorrow he will tell us he didn't know about it till he read the news (2/17)
@RW_UNP in classic form waits till the last minute to make good on UNPs promise to abolish executive presidency (EP). Make no mistake this is not a principled stance but only a move in his own political self interest. His self centered & lethargic attitude towards reform (3/17)
is one of the main reasons for the failure / lack of progress on many of the reform efforts promised in 2015. This move was forcefully defeated by those in how cabinet. (4/17)
@sajithpremadasa @MangalaLK & the UNPers who opposed this move (& their own electoral mandate) also did so for their own self interest. Abolishing EP is going to be much more difficult after an election (at least until people get tired of next despot who gets elected) (5/17)
That's not to say there is no merit in the argument that it is now too late. Even if 20A was to be passed in Parliament with 2/3rds next week, the earliest a referendum can take place is end October/ first week of November (6/17)
Elections Com can't revoke gazette on Pres election until after the referendum. So basically #lka would have had a campaign for a referendum + Presidential election happening at the same time. This would be a logistical nightmare for elections com & political parties (7/17)
The other big problem is what do you replace the EP with? the UNP/SLFP/SLPP have insisted on "a stable government in Parliament" after abolishing EP. there are several proposals on this. (8/17)
One is keeping Proportional Representation election system but adding more bonus seats to winning party in order to give them a better chance to form a "stable government" (9/17)
The disagreements on this include "how many bonus seats should be added" & whether such bonus seats would come from the existing 225 & if so from where. There are also many in Parliament who dislike the idea of increasing the number of "MP's who are not directly elected" (10/17)
The other option is to change the electoral system to one that is more akin to an FPP system. This could potentially allow more stable governments, but as experience in #lka (1948 to 1977) & other parts of the world show this is not guaranteed. (11/17)
This would also change the most equitable / fair feature of the 1978 constitution. Our present election system grantees equality of votes (much more than FPP would. It also allowed us to reflect the plurality in our polity (more smaller parties). (12/17)
If not for PR system would upcountry Tamils have received citizenship? what would have happened to Muslim youths in the 80's and 90's? would #lka ended up being a two party system? This partly explains @Rauff_Hakeem & @ManoGanesan & their parties reluctance to abolish EP (13/17)
The other uncertainty in this last minute move is the track record of this government on committee stage amendments & postponing elections. What would the government bring in during committee stage & how well thought out would those amendments be? (14/17)
All of these problems could have been addressed if this was done earlier. Now we are told "if you want EP abolished, go with this process. It's not ideal but it's all we have". Thus those of us who want EP abolished are left with the options of either.. (15/17)
Hold your nose & support abolishing EP now or hope against all odds that at some future predestined date our MP's will finally abolish EP (highly unlikely to happen, it's not happened since 1994) (16/)
We all need to take a careful look at ourselves and ask the question how did we get here after 2015? The nature of the office of the EP is to lend itself to a despotic rule, hopefully people grow tired of it again sooner (like they did in 94, 2005 & 2015) rather than later - END
