Cards on the table, crisis in the House?

TRUST: gone

I am a democratic-republican, I believe. I believe in the will of the people as exercised through a majority mandate being invested in elected representatives. The checks and balances that the three arms of government bring, commonly known as division and separation of powers. And the rule of law as enshrined in constitutionalism as the sovereign emblem of our nation-state. But if I hear one more of my nice enough fellows proclaim that ‘parliament is supreme’ or spout similar platitudes, I swear I will scream so loud as to be heard over the hubbub at Parliament Junction today! And let me tell you why…

This day

Today, the House is situated at a crossroads like never before, perhaps. True, it has been divided on issues before. And, in the days when it was a genuinely bipartisan legislature, the biggest dichotomy was whether to vote ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ after the division bell was rung. But, ever since a certain former president put an end to party politics as we know it by digging deep into the archives of the country’s ‘corruption files’, our lawmakers have never been the same. 

It has been possible – where it would have been deemed shameful before – to buy an MP’s vote of the moment, loyalty for what it was worth, allegiance to a personage not a principle. This unpalatable truth about the character of too many MPs than is savoury to digest was underlined by the visionary (read ‘short-sighted’) and courageous (or ‘self-serving’) supreme decree of a former chief justice. That a lawmaker might be not so much a lawbreaker but a violator of the people’s trust for all the power of the ballot! It was a sad day when the supreme court decreed that a sitting MP may cross over the floor of the House with a clear conscience to take up an opposition seat and rival portfolio from the one he or she campaigned so sedulously for only a few short days, weeks, months before.

So, an MP – like any other political commodity, such as a vote or an honorific title starting with the word ‘desha’, for e.g. – could be purchased. Today, highest bidders are offering an alleged US$ 2.8 million for a key MP’s ‘conscientious cooperation’. But the righteous whistleblower has yet to name names to the bribery commission or any other body tasked with combating corruption. We’d be forgiven for interpreting his press conference to blow the lid on his moral subverter as only so much posturing. It’s so much par for the course – all this buying and selling and exposing of parliamentary commodities – that MPs have replaced tea or apparel or gems as Sri Lanka’s best-known export. We’re casting real pearls before false swine here!

Yesterday

Today, I look back to 5 November and feel that the House could have sat – if the speaker had support for that grey head he carries on his slouching shoulders. But gerontocratic parliamentarians have enfeebled skeletal frameworks made more pliant by presidential and prime ministerial pressure. And while we democratic-republicans stand on our heads or at roundabouts and loudly proclaim that ‘parliament is supreme’ there is a soft sinister voice whispering in our ear that the only thing we can crow about is a ‘parliament of fowls’ presided over by a procrastinator at worst or pragmatist at best. 

Today, I look forward to 7 November and think that the House should have sat – if the president had the testicular fortitude to test the hypothesis on which he appointed his most recent prime minister. And where one would wish for geriatric former national party stalwarts to show some spine, all we Liberty Roundabout Protestors and other Animal Farm-type barnyard champions of justice can hope for is some sly hands down at the powerhouse throwing the switch.

Today, 6 November I would encourage all truly patriotic citizens of Sri Lanka to dispense with their protests, their platitudes about parliament being supreme, their penchant for tub thumping on Facebook about the speaker’s pusillanimity, their proclivity to traduce the president on Twitter – and get real… To rage against the dying of the light, yes – but also to look beyond the present impasse to a greater issue than a mere constitutional crisis. 

All our tomorrows

Today, no matter which way yesterday’s protest in favour of the president and his newfound friend the former president and current prime minister went, and no matter when the protest all those days before by sterling mothers and grannies supporting ‘democracy, not necessarily Ranil’ ceases and desists from its naivety, we’ll still have our corrupt political culture tomorrow.

And so, for the sake of all our tomorrows, I’m sharing a circular which landed on my online desktop. With some additional comments and challenges, for the critical engagement and supportive critiques of fellow stakeholders in our late great republican project.

This is not in favour of any party or out of fear of any personage. But as a tentative first step towards re-attiring a denuded legislature with at least the vestige of common decency. And its ‘supremacy’, if at all and/or whenever, can come at a later date under a greater dispensation than the present one – UNP, SLFP or other games-playing minority parties included:

1. Parliamentarians should not get a pension. Since what they undertake to do is a public service and not employment. Therefore after election under a putative People’s Representation Act, there can be no retirement perks or a bar on re-employment. However they may seek re-election to the same or similar legislative office again. (Currently, MPs have their pensions guaranteed after a mere five years of ‘service’, which isn’t much – to go by parliamentary attendance registers or their own track records in terms of productive policies proposed and/or implemented.)

2. Parliamentarians’ pay must not have index-linked pensions or be subject to review by MPs themselves. Rather, these should be reviewed and revised in line with a ‘Central Pay Commission’. (Currently, MPs increase their salaries and all emoluments to parliamentarians beyond the norms of reasonableness by arbitrarily voting for such hikes and perks.) 

3. Parliamentarians must not be afforded the special privileged healthcare benefits they presently enjoy. Rather, they can and must and participate in the healthcare system as the general public of Sri Lanka, whom they claim to serve.

4. All concessions to MPs – such as free travel, fuel rations, and payment of utilities such as electricity, water, mobile or land phones – should be abolished. (Currently, they not only avail themselves of these concessions; but also regularly vote to increase it themselves; and boldly ask the people to tighten their belts via austerity measures and shamelessly absent themselves from parliament if and when crucial national issues are debated.)

5. Parliamentarians with past convictions or criminal charges pending against them should be summarily suspended from our august assembly and prevented from contesting any future election – parliamentary or otherwise. There can be no exceptions to this rule, particularly at presidential or prime ministerial fiat, diktat or dispensation.

6. To prevent alleged criminals or prospective cheats or charlatans from holding the previously highly esteemed position of Member of Parliament, all MPs must make public declaration of their assets before and after assuming office, as well as be subject to scheduled/periodic and/or random audits to prevent their noble service from being tainted with the smear of bribery, theft, grand larceny, or corruption in any other form. 

7. Any and every material, financial, fiscal or fiduciary losses incurred due to the conduct or misconduct of MPs while in office can or must be recovered from members of their families, nominees and/or properties or other holdings.

8. Parliamentarians should abide equally by all laws they impose on the general public and be subject to losing their deposit to say nothing of their parliamentary seat if they are apprehended and indicted on charges of misbehaviour and misconduct. (Currently, being an MP is a ticket from everything to not paying parking fees or avoid a one-way ticket to gaol for murder, smuggling, cartels, etc. while appending the initials MP after their illustrious names.) 

9. Once elected, they must remain in the same party. Sure that some legal eagle with the judicious backing of political will on both sides of the House will be able to critique, challenge, subvert and reverse the insidious precedent established by a previous ruling; that, in effect, encourages ludicrous crossovers and endorses lawmaking with no regard for morals or ethics – much less common decency.

Idealistic? Yes. Implementable? Maybe. Immediate? Perhaps. If only we can intimate to our MPs and the parties or personages they ostensibly support that WE’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE with their crassness, shamelessness, etc. However I’m not holding my breath – because there are still contesting PMs. Therefore simply placing the principle of it on record. 

Hopefully politicians will slowly but gradually come to see that the issue is not who the real and true or constitutionally elected PM is today but how moral or ethical he and his fellows MPs are every day.

(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower)