Article Type: EDITORIAL

යහපත් අනාගතයක් සඳහා

Sri Lanka should not go on manufacturing new conflicts once an old one ends. Fonseka’s arrest looked at first glance like the winner punishing the loser, but the President’s account is that the army authorities wanted to court-martial Fonseka over matters arising from his time as Chief of Defence Staff, and that he instructed them to wait until after the election so it would not appear he was blocking his opponent from standing. If the process cannot be reversed it should at least be transparent, and a conviction could be met with a pardon in view of Fonseka’s war service. With the war over, the President’s duty is to soften his administration: let the opposition campaign unhindered, invite back journalists who fled, investigate the one who disappeared during the campaign, and legislate on torture and children’s rights — which would also restore GSP Plus.

ජෙනරාල් අත්අඩංගුවට ගැනීම

The timing and manner of Fonseka’s arrest were both wrong. He took 40 votes in every hundred cast against the winner’s 57 — 4,173,185 against 6,015,934 — which makes him, whatever his background, the country’s second accepted leader. Arresting the loser at the close of a presidential election looks like reprisal, and looks worse still while he is challenging the result in court: a move to block the election petition. Military law should apply to serving soldiers, and Fonseka has retired; offences discovered after retirement, if criminal, belong in the ordinary courts. The government has stained its own victory and made a new hero of the man the voters rejected, and his wife Anoma will become a political figure carrying the grievance from platform to platform. The president stopped two earlier attempts at this arrest and was abroad for the third; correcting it is his responsibility, and a test of his character. The example to follow is Dutugemunu’s treatment of the defeated Elara.

පරිගණක මගඩිය ඇත්තක්ද?

The official result gave Rajapaksa 6,015,934 votes to Fonseka’s 4,173,185 — a margin above 1.8 million. Fonseka and the JVP say that figure was manufactured by the Elections Secretariat’s computer unit rather than summed from the counting centres, and some UNP spokesmen agree, but none has proved it. The signed centre reports are in the hands of party organisers in every seat; comparing a sample against the declared total would take three or four hours. That nobody has done so suggests the claim is untrue. Reports of opposition agents being driven from counting centres cover fewer than ten places, and around eighty officials staff each one — too many to suborn, and the ballots are already marked. The Elections Commissioner is also at fault for not explaining publicly how the count and final tally were conducted.

ඡන්ද ක්‍රමය සේම දේශපාලන ක්‍රමයද වෙනස් විය යුතුය

Rajapaksa promised during the campaign to change the preferential voting system before the next parliamentary election. Changing the electoral system alone is not enough — the political system must change with it, and for the country’s good rather than a party’s. An executive president answerable to parliament and the courts between elections is possible; so is subjecting every presidential act to judicial review, as in the United States. The president should hold no ministry, lose the power to dissolve parliament at will after a year and to call an early election after four, and face a cap on cabinet size. A mixed proportional and constituency system will only work if the parties themselves are made internally democratic, since the present arrangement gives each leader autocratic power. India requires parties to file accounts with the election commission and auditor general, and candidates to declare assets with their nominations. Any amendment must rest on agreement across all parties, not be built for the ruling party as in 1972 and 1977.

සාමකාමී හා ශිෂ්ටසම්පන්නවීමේ වැදගත්කම

Elections are the highest exercise of popular sovereignty and a measure of a country’s political civility — and on that measure Sri Lanka’s record since 1977 offers only cause for shame. Every administration has used state resources and state media for its campaign; only once has election law been followed to the letter, and only because the Supreme Court intervened. People die at every election, the educated speak of it with distress, and everyone forgets once polling closes. Sri Lanka may be the only country with no law controlling party and campaign funds, yet a leading presidential candidate can spend over 1,500 million rupees, and even a parliamentary candidate 100 million. That money is other people’s and must be repaid in some form: this is the foundation of corruption. Whoever wins, both candidates must pledge there will be no reprisals.

ජනාධිපතිවරණය හා නීතියේ පාලනය

The Elections Commissioner has said he may have to withdraw from running the election because his orders are not obeyed — the police ignore him, and state media ignore the Competent Authority. However much authority the constitution grants him, nothing in the country lets him exercise it. This is not new: under Chandrika Kumaratunga an attempt to arrest the Elections Commissioner was stopped only by Attorney General Kamalasabesan’s intervention, and it was Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva who advised her to make it. The 1981 Jaffna district council poll was the first time a ruling party seized election administration outright, and Commissioner Jayasekera resigned over it. Since 1982 no election has been free and fair. Powers mean nothing while the ruler declines to obey the law.

ජය – පරාජය

The presidential contest can only end with one man winning and the other losing, and the system is built so that struggle runs on hatred rather than argument. Rajapaksa and Fonseka fought Prabhakaran on the same side and praised each other publicly; now each sees a traitor across the field, and the public that cheered both has split into camps that regard the other candidate with the loathing once reserved for Prabhakaran. Given that venom, the losing leader and his senior followers will face reprisal whoever wins. The press profits by fanning it. Beneath this lies a system that keeps one party in power for decades — seventeen years to the first change of government, sixteen so far for this one — long enough for the bureaucracy and police to make common cause with whoever rules.

ජනාධිපතිවරණය ජනතාව භේද කරන තරගයක් නොවිය යුතුය

Government figures have attacked the Tamil National Alliance’s decision to back Sarath Fonseka, one claiming it could revive terrorism. The alliance did serve the LTTE’s programme, but out of fear rather than conviction; with the LTTE defeated its representatives can act freely, and its local councillors have sung the national anthem. Backing one of the two main candidates is better than a boycott or a separate candidate. Fonseka, once a hardline Sinhala nationalist, has drawn wide minority support. The Vaddukoddai declaration ruined the Tamil people as much as the country, and the LTTE’s defeat opens space for a united society of equal citizens. Both candidates have a duty to make this an election that moves the country forward rather than one that sows division.

යන්නේ කොයිබටද?

The first presidential election after the defeat of Prabhakaran’s de facto state ought to be about what kind of Sri Lanka replaces it, but the campaign has been consumed by trivia and mutual spite. Both main candidates are products of the war they won — Rajapaksa as commander-in-chief, Fonseka as army commander — and neither has said what he would build. Rajapaksa promises a good future without describing it; Fonseka would abolish the executive presidency without saying what succeeds it. Both are asked to address the grievance minorities believe survives Prabhakaran’s defeat, and to explain how corruption can be beaten within a system built to protect it. The press is told to stop staging cockfights.