• No constitutional constraints on national govt. composition: Ganeshathasan
• Opines a national govt. may not succeed with executive presidency

By Skandha Gunasekara Sri Lanka’s political landscape is in chaos following the resignation of the Cabinet on Sunday (3) night, compelled by the mass protests taking place in the country. At the time of going to print, a ‘caretaker’ or ‘interim’ government has been proposed by several political parties to resolve the crisis. Will this move help build public confidence? What would an interim government be? And what will it take to remove the Executive President? On 3 April defying curfew and a State of Emergency in the country, thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest, calling for the resignation of the President, which prompted the entire Cabinet of Ministers to take a collective decision to resign. Prior to this, many in Parliament, including the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which was a member of the Rajapaksa Coalition Government, had been calling for a caretaker or interim government to be appointed. Following the mass exodus of the Cabinet ministers, President Rajapaksa invited members of the Opposition to join him in forming a new cabinet. Caretaker or interim government Attorney-at-Law and Centre for Policy Alternatives Consultant Luwie Ganeshathasan said that only a national government was defined in the Constitution. “The only sort of special government the Constitution has reference to is a ‘national government’ and there is a definition in the Constitution of what a national government is. Other than that, everything is just a government regardless of how long or short a period it is in existence.  There is nothing specific as to what an interim government or a caretaker government is.” He noted that while sometimes a ‘caretaker’ government could refer to a cabinet that is appointed during an election, both interim and caretaker were just being used arbitrarily. “You have a situation where you have an election and the Parliament is dissolved but still the Cabinet continues – sometimes you call that a caretaker government, which operates between the dissolution of Parliament and the appointment of a new Cabinet. Other than that, there is no hard and fast definition of what these are. These are just words people use to describe various things.” A national government  He explained that a national government was when two or more political parties that contested separately decided to join hands in forming a government and that technically the Government currently in place was a national government as well. Further, he revealed that there were no constitutional provisions limiting or empowering a national government when compared with a normal government. “How it will function will depend a lot on what the arrangement is. There is no constitutional constraint on what can and can’t be done; the national government can’t do more things or fewer things than a normal government. Most of that will be dictated by the economic situation we are in right now and the politics around it.” He then opined that a national government would not be successful with an executive president who had practically unlimited powers and no accountability. “In my opinion I don’t think a national government will succeed with an all-powerful president because you are looking at two years of making difficult decisions. As we are in a very tricky position economically, whoever is going to make those tricky decisions, the best they can hope for is that this country’s economy is stable. You’re not looking at high GDP growth or high income. What you’re looking at is being able to import the essentials and managing debt. Tough decisions are going to be made and you have an executive president who is all-powerful and can veto any of these decisions at any time on a whim, who can without any consultation sack the Government, and dissolve Parliament whenever he feels like it without any accountability other than at the ballot box, so you’re putting a very heavy burden on whoever is going to take up in the next two years. That is a big problem.” Changes needed He went on to say that the political structures needed to be changed to ensure that the current political turmoil won’t recur. “We are in this mess because we have centralised power in the office of the President so much. So after the 20th Amendment we have essentially created a presidency in which ministers are too afraid to disagree with the policies of the President and wholeheartedly support his policies, when clearly he wasn’t listening to a lot of people and only listening to a very small number of people and making bad decisions. Our history over the last 40 years has shown over and over again that every executive president has fallen short. I’m not saying everything is the President’s fault, but there were decisions that were made that made things a lot worse a lot faster. We have an individual who did that and an institution which allowed that to happen and if we think we can get out of this based on the same structure, then I think we are kidding ourselves.” Ganeshathasan explained that the only way for an election to take place would be through a resolution in Parliament. “The only way an election can happen now is if Parliament passes a resolution – and that can be done with a simple majority, to ask the President to dissolve Parliament. The President can’t dissolve now because he has to wait two-and-a-half years after Parliament’s first sitting, so you’re looking at the end of February or early March 2023 when he can dissolve Parliament.” Impeachment Elaborating on how the incumbent President could be removed, Ganeshathasan said that the impeachment process had been designed to make it nearly impossible to impeach a president with the 20th Amendment. “The only way to remove the President is if he resigns or he is impeached. The Constitution has an impeachment clause built into it but it was designed in a way which has made it virtually impossible. First you have to have a resolution tabled and the Speaker has to accept it; if accepted then there has to be debate and a two-thirds majority must vote in support of it. Then it must go before the Supreme Court for an impeachment trial and if the Supreme Court finds him guilty, then it has to go back to Parliament for another vote where a two-thirds majority has to vote in favour. A two-thirds vote is needed twice. It has been designed in a way to make it very difficult to impeach the President.” Explaining further, Ganeshathasan said that in the event the President resigns, Parliament would elect a president: “If the President steps down, there is an Act of Parliament which regulates the election of a new president where the Parliament must elect a president from amongst its members. That president will be in power for the remainder of the current President’s tenure.” Horsetrading Writer and former Minister Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe said that a Parliament vote to appoint a new prime minister would only result in backdoor deals between political parties to gain numbers in the House and this would be rejected by the masses. He said that the President must call on the political party leader with the most support in the Opposition to become the prime minister and then form a government consisting of both sides of the House. He opined that Sri Lanka needed a finance minister who had the respect of the international community and would not seek to stay past the required time period. Professor Wijesinghe then said that significant political reforms were needed in going forward to ensure any political changes that occur did not result in the recurrence of past mistakes, and called for the High Post Committee to be made more independent in manner, such as a Single Transferable Vote, which would serve to ensure checks and balances. Stalemate  Political analyst and academic Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda opined that the interim government would not materialise and the stalemate would continue as long as the Rajapaskas remained in power. “The Opposition is not ready to go for an interim government as long as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa are there. It looks like they are suggesting a precondition that the President and Prime Minister should not be there, so that may not be acceptable to the Rajapaksas and the Government would not have an interim government without the two Rajapaksas dictating terms. It appears that idea is at a deadlock at the moment.” He charged that any move by the Government to appoint a new Cabinet sans the Opposition would be seen as an insult to the public and that the Opposition would not allow the Rajapaksas to avoid responsibility for the current crisis. “If the Government appoints a new Cabinet from among its ranks, the people will see it as a cold joke played on them by the President and the Prime Minister. They should resign, leaving room for negotiations between the President and the Opposition. No Opposition party will just accept an offer for an interim government and shoulder the responsibilities without negotiations. It is almost like a take it or leave it offer from the Government and that is not the way to go about it. I get the feeling the Opposition is not in the mood to allow the Rajapaksas to run away from the responsibility for the crisis.” Professor Uyangoda went on to say that as things stood, the Government would be compelled to take a decision to do as they saw fit without the Opposition, which would only result in the problem going back to its root cause and that political instability would affect negotiations with the IMF.  “I don’t see an interim government working and the Government will have to take unilateral action, which would be for it to act alone without the participation of the Opposition because the Opposition does not seem to be willing to participate. So once again we are back to square one. My feeling is that the political deadlock will continue and I don’t know how it will affect the planned engagement with the IMF. The IMF would want to see that there is some degree of clarity about who is in power and that those who are in power have some popular backing. The Rajapaksas don’t seem to have that at the moment, so the question of political stability will come to the fore again.” He warned that if things continued to deteriorate, Sri Lanka could go down the path of Lebanon. “One scenario would be like Lebanon where the economic crisis will go on, there will be a continuing political crisis as well, people will continue to protest, and the economy will not have any solution and will suffer irreparably. There will be a lot of unrest in the country but I don’t think the political system can avoid the problem because they don’t seem to have the political will or the capacity to do so.”