Why a referendum is a bad idea

Three bad ideas in one week?

One is that the UNP will boycott the Parliamentary Select Committee. Another is that the 17th Amendment must be reintroduced before the Northern Provincial Council election. The third is that a referendum should be held on the subject of the retention or abolition of the 13th Amendment.

It is understandable that the TNA is reluctant to participate in a PSC. The point made by that party is that the goal posts have been shifted. A PSC was not mentioned at the commencement of the talks with the Government and was certainly not stipulated as mandatory.

The TNA says it does not reject participation but that the talks with the Government should achieve some degree of consensus which could be than taken to the PSC. The lousy conduct of the UPFA MPs in the PSC towards the former Chief Justice gives considerable credibility to the TNA’s position.  

This is not true of the UNP. Last year it said that it would boycott the PSC if the TNA did not participate. Its point, more or less, was that a PSC to resolve the ethnic issue would be like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark were the TNA to stay away.

If that argument held any water, it no longer does. The UNP is not the TNA nor is it a coalition partner of the latter, and I hope it knows the difference, though many voters probably think it doesn’t.

That general point apart, the deliberations of the proposed PSC will affect the interests of the UNP quite directly. If the proposal that changes can be made to the powers of the PCs with the concurrence of a majority rather than of all existing PCs, then a UNP-ruled PC can find itself divested of its powers, thereby pre-empting the possibility of an Opposition-led PC proving a developmental success and serving as an electoral lever for change. The UNP must surely participate in the PSC, ally with the progressives among the Government’s representatives and prevent such retrogression. To stay away would be plain bad.

The next bad idea is that the 17th Amendment must be reintroduced before the election to the Northern PC is held. Now that would be nice indeed but it ain’t gonna happen and the UNP Leader who has made the suggestion has no way of enforcing it. He probably thinks the Commonwealth would do so, but then again he thought that George W. Bush would make Chandrika return the portfolios she took away from him. Instead, she held an election which he lost, after a brief two-year stint as the PM.

The choice today is to hold the northern election this September with or without the 17th Amendment or wait till the 17th Amendment is reintroduced. Now the latter proposition would suit those hawks in Government who do not wish to hold an election. I trust that was not the intention of the Opposition Leader.

The crucial battle now is to keep the 13th Amendment intact in all its essentials, block the neoconservative counter-reformation, hold the election in September and count on the Commissioner of Elections, the world’s media and international observers to keep that election fair and transparent.

The race is a close one but the worst idea around is possibly the one that a national referendum should be held on the retention or abolition of the 13th Amendment. That gem of wisdom comes from the JHU and NFF but has been picked up by opinion makers closer to the Opposition leadership. Those who advocate it like to see themselves as patriots, but their suggestion gravely undermines the national interest. It is evident that the advocates of a referendum are myopic to the point of inability to see beyond their noses.

Consider the highly probable – I would say, almost certain – result of such a referendum. The Tamils of the north and east will vote against abolition on the 13th Amendment as will the Muslims. There is no Tamil political party in Opposition or with the Government that will support abolition. There is no Muslim party of any significance that will do so either. Most of the Sinhalese, located in the southern two-thirds of the island, will vote for abolition. Except for the Sinhalese in Ampara, the north and east will vote in one direction, the south another.

The bloc of ‘Tamil speaking people,’ a long-standing slogan of Tamil ultranationalists, will be created by this plebiscite. The electoral map will show the north and east re-merged emotionally, psycho-politically; de facto although not de-jure. Worse still, the NO vote will pretty much correspond to the contours of the Tamil Eelam map. The world will see a divided Sri Lanka, with a clearly defined proto-Tamil Eelam.

To compound the stupidity, a referendum would also reveal a NO vote right in the heart or abdomen of the island, the hill country, with a majority of Tamils of recent Indian origin voting against the abolition of the 13th Amendment. What a damaging blow such a political map would be to the achievement of the Sri Lankan armed forces and what a splendid gift to the Tamil Eelamists in Tamil Nadu and the diaspora!

[Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka is a member of the International Expert Group (INTEG) of Security Index, a Russian Journal on international security; the ‘academic and policy quarterly journal’ of the Russian Centre for Policy Studies, Moscow-Geneva-Monterrey.]