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Good Governance: The Hard Road

from Slogan to Reality

by Tisaranee Gunasekara

Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.


Camus (An Absurd Reasoning)
( February 14, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) On January 5 th, 2015, the last day
of the campaign, newspapers were full of advertisements, most supporting Mahinda
Rajapaksa. Unique amongst them was a full page ad by the Diyawadana Nilame and
the Basnayake Nilames of 31 devales. The ad denounced local and international forces
and other evil people who are trying to commit the great sin of destabilising the
country; it also expressed full backing to the holy leader courageously defending the
country.
That surreal ad was symbolic of the state of the country after less than a decade of
Rajapaksa rule. Everything was suborned to Rajapaksa needs and interests. Even the
gods had to go the way of judges, military personnel, bureaucrats and diplomats, and
become tools of Rajapaksa power.
As the Tissa Attanayake case proves, arresting someone is easy; building up a case
which can withstand the rigours of a free and fair trial is much harder. Its better to
take time to build up a proper case, rather than hurry things (due to pressure) and end
up with a botched case.
Instituting a sense of proportion, basic levels of intelligence and decency and the rule
of law after a degeneration of such magnitude is no easy task.

Take the rule of law an indispensable component of good governance.


Many of the most ardent opponents of the former administration are unhappy about
the slow pace of justice (I know; I am one of them). More then a month has gone by
since the Rajapaksas lost power; but they and their closest acolytes seem to enjoy an
unacceptable level of impunity. Many wonder when justice will be done or whether it
will be done at all.
Bringing the Rajapaksas or anyone else to justice is not an easy task. A solid case
must be built which can prevail in a court of law. The former power-wielders would
have done what they could to hide the evidence of their crimes; uncovering their trail
can take time and effort. And the Rajapaksas probably still has the capacity to slow
things down, perhaps considerably.
Building up water-tight cases against the Rajapaksas and their close acolytes would
therefore be no easy task. And a blotched job can discredit the entire effort, as the case
of Tissa Attanayake demonstrates.
Tissa Attanayake revealed the supposed agreement between Maithripala Sirisena and
Ranil Wickremesinghe. Investigations have uncovered it was a bogus document. But
investigations do not seem to have uncovered the author of that bogus document.
Though the police took Mr. Attanayake into custody, they obviously did so without
sufficient evidence that his was the hand (or the brains) behind the bogus document.
While approving bail for Mr. Attanayake, the magistrate commented on the polices
inability to come up with any witnesses. Mr. Attanayake says he discovered the
Agreement by accident while going through some Health Ministry files. We can be
certain that he is lying. But for a court of law such deductions however obvious and
logical are of no interest, in the absence of actual proof.
As the Tissa Attanayake case proves, arresting someone is easy; building up a case
which can withstand the rigours of a free and fair trial is much harder. Its better to
take time to build up a proper case, rather than hurry things (due to pressure) and end
up with a botched case.
The Rajapaksas persecuted their enemies under the guise of prosecuting them. They
turned the law into a charade and instituted trials which were total and manifest
miscarriages of justice. The new government can of course mete the same treatment to
the Rajapaksas. Such treatment is easy because they are a function of power and not of
justice. But that is not good governance. That is not even intelligent governance. Every
time the new government reduces the moral-ethical gap between itself and the

Rajapaksas, it discredits itself and helps re-legitimise Rajapaksa rule.


Not the right thing to do; definitely not the wise thing to do, with the Rajapaksas
waiting in the wings to make a grand comeback.
The modus operandi used to resolve the CJ imbroglio did not reflect well on the
government. Getting rid of Mohan Peiris was essential for good governance; but in
order to get rid of him, good governance had to be violated.
Once is enough. The new government must not tread that path again, for whatever
reason. Means are as important as the ends. Those rulers who violate the rule of law
for good reasons inevitably end up by doing so for bad reasons.
19th Amendment and Parliamentary Maths
The new government promised to correct Rajapaksa errors and misdeeds, restore
democracy and rule of law, provide relief to the masses and bring those suspected of
murder and kleptocrcy to justice. All in just hundred days!
Some promises have been honoured, notably the promise to reduce economic burdens
on the masses.
The economics of the Interim Budget tally with the latest economic findings by the
OECD, the Wests leading think-tank. Its December 2014 report has made a radical
break with neo-liberal trickle-down economics. The Report identifies inequality not as
an engine of growth but an enemy of growth: Income inequality has a sizeable and
statistically negative impact on growth.redistributive policies achieving greater
equality in disposable income has no adverse growth consequences. The Reports
recommended solutions include higher taxes on the rich and policies aimed at
improving the lot of the bottom 40% of the population Government transfers have an
important role to play in guaranteeing that low-income households do not fall further
back in the income distribution.[i]
The promise to restore democracy and rule of law will depend to a large extent on the
19thAmendment. Going by the available (unofficial) draft, the 19 th Amendment, if
passed andimplemented (passed is not coterminous with implemented), will deepen
and broaden democracy by de-concentrating power and instituting a system of
absolutely necessary checks and balances. It will also help in the task of
building/rebuilding institutions, many of which had been macerated and
disembowelled by the Rajapaksas.

But to get the 19th Amendment through, the government needs the support of the
opposition.
The government does not command even a simple majority in parliament. And the
19thAmendment cannot be passed without a two-thirds majority. Therefore, in the
interests of creating the basic institutional and legal framework of good governance,
the government must maintain a non-antagonistic relationship with the opposition.
This would require a certain degree of give-and-take. And this give-and-take may well
include not proceeding too fast on bringing many a corrupt member of the former
regime to justice.
The choice is unpalatable but unavoidable. To pass the 19 th Amendment without
which good governance will remain a mere slogan the government needs the support
of around 40 to 50 members of the opposition. And several opposition members have
indicated that a slow approach to justice is the price for their continued corporation in
parliament. Therefore, if the 19th Amendment is to become a reality during the 100
Days, justice for past crimes may have to be de-prioritised or deferred, at least for a
while. Or else justice for past crimes can be prioritised and expedited, but only at the
risk of the 19thAmendment.
Given the current composition of the parliament, there is no happier way out of the
conundrum.
Far less explicable is the new governments decision to continue with some of the more
repressive policies of the Rajapaksas. Why renew the order giving police powers to the
military? Why extend by two years a Rajapaksa law which allows the police to detain
suspects for murder and other serious crimes sans a warrant for 48 hours? If the
government has some valid reason for these decisions, they must be explained to the
public.
The Rajapaksas treated voters like juveniles. They did not think they owed the public
the truth. The new government does.
The Right to Information Act, even if it is passed, will remain a dead letter if the new
government too believes in withholding necessary information from the public. The
weekly press conference must not go back to being exercises in lies, half-truths and
obfuscations. It is wrong; and it does not work.
It will help none but the Rajapaksas.
The consent of the people cannot be fossilised; it cannot be taken for granted. As VS

Naipul warned, Power came from the people. As high a man could be taken up, so
low when he lost power, he could be cast down[ii].
Port City and Future Economics
The controversy surrounding the real status of the Port City is illustrative of how
controversial matters should not be handled.
The UNP was strongly critical of the project, citing very valid financial, environmental
and political reasons. Ranil Wickremesinghe publicly pledged to scrap the project.
Early this month Minister Rajitha Senaratne said that the project will go ahead and
that the Environment Assessment was properly done. Then the PM announced that a
final decision is yet to be taken. Minister Kiriella told the media that the work on the
project has come to a halt automatically. Anyone who goes past the Galle Face knows
this is a lie, and a very inane one at that.
In the meantime the Vice President of China Construction Communication Company
(CCCC) Zhang Baozhong said that he had nothing to worry about the Port City and
that it will go ahead for sure[iii]. Is he aware of some truth unknown to the Lankan
public? Is that why despite the governments assertion that the work has come to a
halt, the work very obviously continues?
Is China already sovereign in the Port City?
There are so many unanswered questions about the Port City. Is it our version of the
Guantanamo Bay? What is the nature of the Agreement between the Rajapaksas and
the Chinese party? Which law will prevail in the piece of land leased to the CCCC for 99
years? Will it be Lankan law or Chinese law? If it is the latter, how is Colombo to
prevent Beijing from using the land for military purposes? What will be the Indian
reaction? Are we going to be the turf on which the two regional mammoths battle it
out?
What is the truth about the project? Is it environmentally sound or not? If the Port City
is not bad enough to be scrapped, wouldnt, shouldnt some credit for this not-reallybad project accrue to ex-President Rajapaksa? If the project has major flaws, and the
government is unable to cancel it, the people must be told why. If the government fails
to tell the truth to the people, it will do itself considerable discredit.
Another potential danger is the proposed IMF bailout, probably an unavoidable
measure, given the Rajapaksas financial depredations and their effect on the national
economy. But this must not mean a return to the policies of austerity. Austerity, in a
neo-liberal context, means nothing more than burdening the already overburdened

bottom layers of society. The result is a slow but steady evaporation of the popular
consensus necessary for democratic transformation and a re-legitimisation of antidemocratic and racist ideas.
Public opinion is not a monolith but a pendulum. And the Jam-tomorrow economics
of austerity can give the discredited cause of ethno-religious racism a new lease of life.
The danger is particularly acute in Sri Lanka, where a National Socialist variety of anticapitalism has had a strong historical presence. If the new government embraces
austerity at the IMFs urging, if it asks the poor and the middle classes to tighten their
belts, again, the brand of anti-capitalism which blames all Sinhala woes on avaricious
Tamil, Muslim and Christian capitalists would make a triumphant comeback.
At its head we may see the familiar figure of Mahinda Rajapaksa.
[i] http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/09/revealed-wealth-gap-oecdreport
http://www.oecd.org/inclusive-growth/All-on-Board-Making-Inclusive-GrowthHappen.pdf
[ii] India: A Million Mutinies Now
[iii] http://colombogazette.com/2015/02/11/china-sure-port-city-will-continue/
Posted by Thavam

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