By Skandha Gunasekara Chief Minister of the Northern Province C.V. Wigneswaran speaking on the effects of the proposed 20th Amendment to the Constitution pointed out that the removal of a publicly appointed president would result in ethnic minorities being deprived of their crucial decision-making power in electing the head of state. Criticising the current President for being partisan to a single political party, the Chief Minister however noted that until the process of devolving power was fully completed, the abolition of the executive presidency would have an adverse effect on ethnic minorities. Below are excerpts of his interview with The Sunday Morning: Will the abolition of a directly elected executive president, under the proposed 20th Amendment, disadvantage the ethnic minorities in playing a role in deciding state power? Will this political disadvantage once again drive the minorities to opt for political change through violence to avoid further unfair dominance by the Sinhala majority community? Yes. As per the terms of the 20th Amendment, the Parliament would select the President, and it would be by majority vote. Thus, it would be the party in power who would select the President, and he would be loyal to this party alone. Minorities would lose their decision-making power unless they side with the party in power. Under the present system, without winning the heart of the minorities, it is difficult for a President to win on majority votes alone. The mistake made by the present President in power is that he is too closely tethered to his Party. He should have taken up a non-partisan attitude in commensuration with his position; similar to how I remained non-partisan during the General Election in 2015. An Executive President, once elected directly by the people, should remain loyal to all his people and not to his party alone. We expected a lot from the present President since he was elected by minority votes, but he then became a partisan to his former party. Certainly a President conscious of his duties towards all his people, directly elected by them, could be a bulwark against domination by the party in power. We, the Tamils, have given up violence, not because we cannot fight again, but because we have become conscious of the huge human tragedies we witnessed. We also witnessed the brutality of mankind. Hence, we will certainly fight against the unfair domination by the majority community in whatever system that prevails, but we will do it within the law and with the democratic means of protest available to us. Results may take time but it will certainly be worth the wait when considering the tremendous human suffering the violence brought about. Whatever the system, we will continue to fight unfair domination based on wrong perceptions of history. There still seems to be a large number of voters who are not strongly opposed to the executive presidency, as many opinion polls indicate. Also, despite the failures of the major political parties to fulfil their election promise to abolish the executive presidency, these same parties continue to be elected into power. So, if there is no popular consensus on this matter, should we be in such a hurry to abolish the executive presidency? Until the devolution process is completed, abolishing the executive presidency will have adverse effect on the minorities. However, the Executive President must be capable of understanding the effect of not solving problems. He should be loyal to those who brought him to power, and not to his former party alone, or to his community and religion alone. According to the Bill, the President is to be appointed by Parliament and be appointed leader of Parliament with only some ceremonial functions. Is such a figurehead necessary at all? Won’t it be a waste of public money to maintain such a figurehead official? In every parliamentary system there must be a ceremonial leader who coordinates the executive, legislative, and provincial governance. Wasting public money is taking place in any case. If the ceremonial head wishes, he could control waste. After decades of governance in which most of state power was concentrated in the hands of a single political office under the executive presidential system, have we not learned the lesson that so much power should actually be divided between at least two centres of power; namely the Legislature and the Executive Presidency? So why is there an attempt to now concentrate power solely in the Legislature? Won’t we then have an all-powerful Parliament/Prime Minister instead of an all powerful President? You seem to want the continuation of the executive presidency for reasons best known to you. Whether it is the Prime Minister or the Executive President, concentrating power on anyone without checks and balances would be a tragedy. Moreover, if independent judicial intervention by constitutional protection is not guaranteed, then that too will lead to the concentration of powers. This highly decisive Amendment was tabled only a year before parliamentary elections are due. Parliamentary experience all over the world indicates that most political parties become too busy with electoral campaigning and strategising and do not want to be seen voting on such critical legislation, so why the rush? Why not campaign on this during next year’s expected general election and see what the voters think of the proposal? It is to show that promises given by them were fulfilled. They are preparing for the next election. Once they come to power it would be different. In most presidential elections, there are clear indications that the ethnic minority vote banks play a bigger role in deciding the head of state rather than when voting for political parties in parliamentary elections. In this light, the abolition of the process of a directly elected executive president could mean that you are depriving the ethnic minorities this small advantage to avoid complete dominance by the Sinhala majority, do you have any comments on the matter? It is true that minorities would lose their decision making power in electing the President. An Executive President must generally win the heart of the minorities. It is difficult for a President to win on majority votes alone.