Friday Nov 15, 2024
Friday Nov 15, 2024
Tuesday, 13 January 2015 00:15 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Watching the drama at the Elections Secretariat, my 12-year-old granddaughter asked me in her chummy innocence, “Aththappa, why is that man going on and on without telling who won?” She was very confused on that fateful morning. Her grandmother was crying and denouncing all Sinhala ingrates who voted against the wonderful, friendly president who loved little children and addressed the Buddhist clergy as ‘Apey Hamuduruwane’. Grandmother was equally furious that “the stupid people did not appreciate the parks, walkways, and arcades that made Colombo a beautiful city”.
The little girl was in agreement with the grandmother about walkways. She added that McDonalds has now set up shop at the edge of water.
For all that, endowed with a generally vivacious disposition, she was inclined to side with her exulting grandfather who sent an email to her aunt living abroad and read out aloud to anybody who cared to listen. “Our nation has retrieved its dignity. I rejoice that from today my grandchildren could grow up in an open society in which opinions could be expressed and not whispered.”
Beginning of national reconciliation
This was the beginning of national reconciliation. For the first time our nation state has a unifying agenda – the restoration of civil liberties of the citizenry. For the first time our land, that has preserved what the Buddha taught for a near three millennia, has a President who can recite a stanza from the ‘Dhamma Pada’ with the ease of a child in Sunday School.
The north and the east has opted for harmony at the centre instead of hegemony at the periphery. They have chosen the sage politician living next door to carry their message of unity and hope. The process of nation building has acquired geographical symmetry. There is hope on both banks of the Mahaweli.
Children don’t give up until their curiosity is appeased. She repeated why the bearded gentleman was taking so long. She had to be reassured that her grandfather was a reliable counsel. Knowing full well that I was giving her a somewhat warped lesson in civics, I explained to her that it was customary for the Commissioner of Elections to thank the departing President before congratulating the new President elect.
Thanking the defeated incumbent
Since the average readers of the Daily FT are adults, this writer wishes to rephrase the question of a 12-year-old girl.
Is it customary for the Commissioner of Elections to thank a defeated incumbent for upholding the highest principles of a democracy? Does compliance with the verdict of an election amount to a great patriotic accomplishment that earns encomiums of the nation?
On nomination day, the Commissioner of Elections reminded all presidential candidates including the President seeking re-election that Sri 
Lanka had a proud record of exercising universal adult franchise since 1931. Only New Zealand and Sri Lanka could make this unique claim in the entire Asia Pacific region.
This writer and many other informed citizens were pleased with the reassuring announcement by the Commissioner of Elections. However they were curious to find out why this exemplary public servant had to announce to the nation that the former President was complying with the expressed will of ‘we the people’.
Compliance with the will of the people is the ‘grundnorm’ of a democracy. Determining the degree of detachment and grace with which one chooses to vacate office is clearly the prerogative of the person relinquishing office.
Sri Lanka has re-elected incumbent Presidents for a second term in office in 1982, 2000 and 2010. This is the first instance of an incumbent president relinquishing power after a failed bid for re-election for a third term. The announcement by the Commissioner amounted to a new precedent set to meet the extraordinary demands of an unprecedented election. No previous election saw invited voters gobbling up a quarter million packs of ‘biriyani’ at Temple Trees.
It is not customary for a policeman to thank a motorist for stopping at a red light. It is not customary for a gynaecologist to thank a patient for a normal delivery sparing the inconvenience of a caesarean.
The uncommon announcement by the Commissioner of Elections and his palpable sense of relief and satisfaction makes the sardonic observation by Malcolm Muggeridge the editor of the ‘Spectator’ relevant to this narrative.
Rajapaksa presidency’s democratic endeavours
Some deliberate acts during the second term of the Rajapaksa presidency are surely in the category of endeavours that invite retrospective gloom today but seemed full of promise then.
The President jailed his opponent in the election won with a resounding margin. It was a rare feat for a president of a republic which claimed a stellar record of exercising universal franchise since 1931. The democratic elections were introduced 14 years before he was born. This writer should be forgiven for being alarmed by the weighty pronouncements of Dulles Alahapperuma who may have learnt his presentation skills from Rush Limbaugh during his sojourn in the homeland of democracy. He repeatedly assured that the continuance in office by President Mahinda 
Rajapaksa was as certain as sun rise on the morrow.
Then there is the other remarkable democratic endeavour of the Rajapaksa presidency. The 43rd Chief Justice was impeached, investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in which Opposition members refused to participate. The committee held its sittings in camera and recommended impeachment in defiance of a ruling by the Court of Appeal. The flawed process prompted the eminent President’s Counsel K. Kanagiswaran to warn that the ‘barbarians were at the gate’. There were fireworks illuminating the night sky over Diyawanna Lake celebrating the impeachment of the Chief Justice.
An unabashed admirer of the Rajapaksa regime who chronicled the 30-year war identified the presidential sibling and Defence Secretary as the mastermind of the military triumph that ended a 30-year war. The war that ended a year before was rebranded as ‘Gota’s War’.
The President was at his zenith. He owned the war. The monolith was in place. It was the end of history. His huge constituency of a benighted citizenry marvelled at the sprouting manmade lakes and high rises. The path was clear and the march was brisk.
The elected has turned ‘Anointed.’ The Stanford Scholar Tom Sowell author of ‘Conflicted Visions’ identifies the problem with Anointed Leaders. “In their haste to be wiser and nobler, they assume that they have more knowledge than the average member of the benighted.”
The Commissioner of Elections owes it to my granddaughter to explain why he had to deliver that lengthy homily before announcing the final result. If she grows up to write elegant prose in the style of a Dharisha or a Tisaranee, she would then write about a bearded man who pulled the country from the edge of an abyss and lived up to his name – Desha Priya.
(Sarath De Alwis is a former journalist, a retired professional in leisure and aviation industries.)
