What is wrong with the Executive Presidency ?

Many seem to want the executive presidency abolished. The man who put in place the executive Presidency writing a whole new Constituency was unable to use the executive powers appropriately.  He was in fact manipulated by India to mutilate the very Constitution he fathered by forcing him to introduce into it an amendment unbecoming of a Sri Lankan National Constitution which  was prepared by Indians in India without even consulting him. 

That mutilation of the Constitution  was mainly due to USA , which JR thought was his friend who would stand by him if the necessity arises.  But when his armed forces were about to defeat the terrorists rounding them up in Jaffna in June 1983, India trespassed the Sri Lankan air space to  drop dry ration to the beleaguered terrorists. At that time when  JR  was mostly in need of his friend the USA,  it abandoned him giving the Indians an upper hand to dictate terms to JR the Executive President of Sri Lanka who succumbed to India by accepting an Indian Peace keeping Force and introducing India’s own 13 Amendment into the Sri Lanka Constitution.

The subsequent Executive Presidents of Sri Lanka were unable to make use of the Executive Presidency in the interest of the country and its people.  The President R.Premadasa was a pathetic representation of an Executive President.  He armed the terrorists against the Indian Peace Keeping  Forces and learnt a bitter lesson by getting himself assassinated by the terrorists he armed.  Then came Chandrika Kumaratunga giving hope to a people who had enough of  President R.Premadasa.

But Chandrika soon found herself  unable to make use of her Presidency let alone the executive powers vested in it.  She was utterly lost unable to make sense of what to do with terrorism on the one hand  and the tsunami that hit the Island  on the other, and the vast amount of donations from donor  countries and  the gang of NGO parasites that followed the donations. 

The Tsunami was an excuse for a host of foreign  NGOs with ulterior motives to encamp in the areas occupied by the terrorists, to help the terrorists not so much to develop the areas devastated by the tsunami but to train them into a considerable armed force able to stand up to the Sri Lanka Armed Forces.       

Chandrika wanted to come to a political settlement with the terrorists to  share the tsunami donations coming from different foreign  donor States. The terrorists were trying to make capital of the situation formed an Interim Self Governing Authority to share tsunami Funds directly between the government and them.

In the mean time Chandrika was proposing political packages  to the terrorists even suggesting the terrorist leader to take over the North for ten years without any elections !  Prabhakaran who was adamant in the division of the country refused.  Chandrika  was unable to take a decisions, and Ranil Wickramasinghe the leader of the  UNP  who  she invited  to participate in the meetings refused to collaborate with her.

Finally with Rauf Hakeem of the SLMC with his followers who took themselves to be the  king makers in Sri Lankan Politics left the government  forcing Chandrika Kumaratunga to  call for a General Election in 2001. In that election the UNF lead by Ranil Wickramasinghe won the  elections and he was made the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.

“In the parliamentary general election 2001 UNF, led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, won 109 seats and PA was able to obtain only 77 seats. Consequently he was able to form a new UNF government and sworn as the 17th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on 9 December 2001. However  Chandrika Kumaratunga still remained the President of the country. This led to a confusing situation where the President and the Prime Minister were from two opposite parties. Although, according to the constitution, both head of state and head of government was the President, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was able to appoint his own cabinet 

and he had the actual control over the government. President Chandrika Kumaratunga also chaired cabinet meetings as de facto head, but her influence over decision making was strictly limited.” (wikipedia)

Ranil Wickramasinghe unofficially took over the Executive powers of the President Chandrika Kumaratiunga leaving her in the lurch, to take Eric Solheim as his consort and started his Prime Ministerial carrier to please the terrorists according to the whim and fancy of Solheim.  The Executive Power of the PresidentChandrika Kumaratunga  was precariously undermined and Solheim got Ranil Wickramasinghe to sign a CFA prepared by Solheim himself, with Prabhakaran handing over areas occupied by the terrorists as terrorist controlled areas making them off limit for the Government Forces or the Police Force.

Chandrika finally utilised her executive powers to take over  Several Ministries of the Cqabinet of  Ranil Wickramasinghe and dissolved the Parliament.

“Few days after LTTE proposed of the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA), President Chandrika Kumaratunga  sacked three ministers of the cabinet and took over the ministries using her constitutional powers ending the uneasy coalition between her and the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe while he was out of the country.  Addressing the nation she claimed that this decision was taken in the interest of national security.

Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna also decided to ally with PA to defeat the Ranil Wickremesinghe's government which they claimed as a threat to the sovereignty of the country. Consequently President Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolved the parliament on 7 February 2004  which effectively ended Ranil Wickremesinghe's regime.” ( wikipedia)

That in short was the history of how the Executive Powers of the Presidents of Sri Lanka were misused, and hopelessly denigrated until 2005.  Those Presidents were simply unable to use properly and beneficially to the country and the people the executive powers vested in them as Presidents.

Sri Lanka saw a real Executive President in action using his executive powers to the maximum wholly in the interest of the country and its people and never against them, only after the election of Mahinda Rajapakse as the President of Sri Lanka in 2005.

With Executive Powers vested in him the President Rajapakse was able to delegate different tasks to selected persons specialised in the particular subjectss allocated to them.  It was with that organised methodology that he was able to eliminate terrorism, while developing the country  in every way possible.

Thus the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse provided to the country and its people,  security, peace and an unprecedented development within five years after elimination of terrorism, which no president  before him could have even dreamt of achieving. 

His remarkable ability in governance  is proof in the visual  development in all sectors such as transport, communication, education, health, agriculture, and the beautification of cities. He is on the other hand  most privileged to be blessed with a capable set of brothers on whom he could place his complete trust. They consist of  the Rajapakse family which is constantly attacked by the opposition.

This unprecedented  development process initiated by the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse cannot be stopped all of  a sudden, as it would be detrimental to the country as a whole, as much remains to be done by the present Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse with his remarkable foresight and organisational ability.   

Therefore the Executive President  Mahinda Rajapakse should be re-elected for a third  term in order to complete the work he had commenced and partly completed to the satisfaction of all those who could look objectively at  the contribution made by the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse in providing security to the country, peace to the people and development to the country in all respect.

The much talked  about corruption has to be taken up as a separate issue as much is involved in it.  The development projects with funds received in billions is a great temptation where bribery corruption is concerned

But we cannot overlook the fact that despite  numerous  reported and unreported incidents of bribery and corruption, the development processes have  continued unabated under the present Executive President.

There were large scale of corruption  during the previous governments but then  there had not been a balancing off in development to counter the massive corruption at the time. It may seem a lame excuse to minimise the vice of corruption.  But unfortunately corruption  accompanies all systems of governments globally. It needs attention and requires hitherto untried methods to eliminate it, even partially if not wholly.

Therefore to condemn the government of the Executive President Rajapakse for corruption without taking into consideration the massive development  undertaken successfully  by it  is absurd.  

The previous governments as pointed out before which had also been corrupt have not left a considerable number of  completed  development projects to off set corruption under their governments, in contrast to the Government of the President Mahinda  Rajapaksa.

But what is wrong with the Executive  Presidency if it has not committed  any wrong against the people, but looked after the welfare of the people  who are primarily the stakeholders of development ?

Madoluwawe Sobhita apparently the prime mover in the  call for the abolition of the Executive Presidency seems not to know much about governing,  leave alone Executive Presidency. The  executive powers vested in the President in terms of the Constitution of Sri Lanka were  getting rusty and crumbling due to having been left unused  or used rarely by the previous Presidents since 1978.  It was  Mahinda Rajapakse that refurbished the instrument when he took over the reins of Presidency and put the executive powers into good use.

Executive Presidency is now being  faulted by its opponents who never understood the value of it and how to  use it for the benefit of the country and its people.  Madoluwewe Sobita, Athureliye Ratana, Omalpe  Sobita, Champika Ranawaka       and the UNP cohorts are mere noise makers with an axe to grind inviting the Western Countries to interfere into our affairs through their puppets like Ranil Wickramsinghe, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Jehan Perera and Nimalka Fernando  and the rest.

Some say that the introduction of the 18th Amendment was deliberate to use the Executive powers against the people and allow the Executive President to overstep democracy  taking away the independence of the judiciary and the appointments of  various heads of  Administrative Services and  the Police Force etc. 

The 18^th Amendment is essential to stop the limitation on the election of  a President for two terms.

The two term presidency had been a failure in USA and France.  No progressive development of a country could be carried out by limiting the Presidency for two terms. It is more so in developing countries like Sri Lanka.  It is for the first time in the history of Independent Sri Lanka that we have an Executive President who carried out so much of development in so  little a time.

If we were to  oust the present Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse now,  to please a band of self seeking individuals to set up their own system, all the progress Sri Lanka has seen  under the Present executive President Mahinda Rajapakse will vaporise into thin air taking back Sri Lanka perhaps to what it was in 2005.  There can be no doubt about it as with an executive Prime Minister like Ranil Wickramasinghe the Western Countries  will make Sri Lanka  their play ground like Cuba under Baptista.

After  Baptista was removed  from Cuba and the country delivered from the American Mafia,  USA took revenge by imposing a trade embargo caring less for the people , with the  determination of ousting Castro. Fortunately Cuba did not have an intransigent opposition like in Sri Lanka and hence Cuba developed into an Independent country despite  American enemy on its door step. 

This is the intended desire of the West towards Sri Lanka, making the  elimination of terrorism a war crime to take the President  who gave his people peace and security, before a Tribunal.  That is purely  because the executive President of Sri Lanka is not one who would bend his back to please the Western Governments  which consider themselves still the masters of developing countries required  to exist on their handouts.

With regard to the independence of the Judiciary and making appointments of  high ranking officials the solution is in the  Special Parliamentary Committees under the 18^th Amendment.  It is no fault of the Executive President Mahinda Rajapakse that the different political parties that were requested to send their representative to the SPC deliberately refused to do so, thus making it impossible for the SPC to function democratically.

Then they also accuse the Executive Presidency for media curb.  Sri Lanka is today a developing country just out of a 30 year old suffering under terrorism, with a  debilitating  democracy constantly interfered into by the Western Democracies to stop the Development of Sri Lanka , least concerned of its Independent Sovereignty. 

The Sri Lanka media has still not taken into consideration that it should be people friendly and support the elected government doing a decent peace of work for the welfare of the people. Therefore the government has to some time instruct the press  to refrain from giving publicity to certain news items if they can be used by the West for the detriment of the Country. It is a necessary censure of information.

Daily Mirror, Sunday Times, Mawbima, Sunday Leader,  Ceylon Today,  are some of the miscreants in this respect.  The media curb to a cert        ain extent is necessary for Sri Lanka today and that should not be considered an abuse of Executive  power of the President.  The media has also to  contribute to the progress and development of Sri Lanka without highlighting certain news items which could be utilised by the west against Sri Lanka.

When mentioning writing an article about Executive  Presidency it was mentioned that it would be good to  write that there  are people in the villages who are poor and earn their living doing odd jobs for others. For these people the Budget does not mean much and their living conditions remain the same what ever is the budget and who ever is its  mover. Therefore it would be a useful innovation to require the PCs to have a register of these poor people and give them a small weekly or monthly remuneration to offset their meagre earnings.

Executive Presidency is useful  for Sri Lanka which has come out of a ruthless terrorism, to be watchful and stop a recurrence of it, keep away the unfriendly West from disrupting its progressive development, bring the Communities together as a Sri Lankan Nation without allowing fanatism to blind their patriotism, stop corruption at all levels, and allow the continuation of the development processes, to give the people happiness and prosperity.