A change of course in Sri Lanka?

SRI LANKA'S PRESIDENT, Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga, is in a conciliatory mood which the Opposition parties in that hapless country's mainstream political arena are now scrutinising for signs of any hidden agenda. By postponing a planned referendum on the need for a new Constitution, she seems to have surprised her adversaries in conventional politics. Ms. Kumaratunga's willingness to delay consulting the sovereign people is being packaged variously on her behalf. It is being portrayed as a non- partisan quest for consensus and also as a declaration of the President's courage of conviction. Discernible beyond such hype by Ms. Kumaratunga's friends and allies is her democratic climbdown from the pedestal of an imperious autocracy that she herself had shaped in the place of her popular mandate. Now, irrespective of her new tactics and strategy, the emerging reality, insofar as it might last, should be fair to the people of Sri Lanka. Two inter-related reasons have been cited officially to justify the deferral of a referendum that was ordered in a highly surcharged political environment. Underlined is the President's belief that any appeal to the people ``at this time'' for their opinion ``might exacerbate confrontation at various levels rather than facilitate the evolving consensus on constitutional reforms''. The reasoning is noteworthy for what it conceals and not just for what it reveals.

The President's latest sighting of an ``evolving consensus on constitutional reforms'' must be seen in the context of her belief that political parties might support urgent constitutional amendments to fulfill her ``wishes'' even ``without a referendum''. Most Opposition parties at first viewed her plebiscite ploy as a means to bypass Parliament which had in recent months gone beyond her control and to evoke people's sympathy on the basis of a vague proposition about the necessity of an altogether new statutory framework for the polity. Not surprisingly, the campaign towards the now-deferred referendum was dominated by perceptions about Ms. Kumaratunga's gameplans. It is in this context that she is seeking to gain a respite before fine-tuning a strategy to stamp her presidential will over any measure that Parliament itself or even the people might endorse in respect of constitutional changes.

A redress of the genuine grievances of Sri Lanka's minority Tamils and the political-ethical question of a rightful place for them in the polity constitute a key aspect of the grand constitutional debate. An almost endemic search for a viable system of checks and balances as also frequent doubts over the relative merits of a Gaullist-style presidency and a prime ministerial government have also defined the political discourse over time. While the battle over ideas was often scintillatingly high-minded in the past, even as Neelan Tiruchelvam and Prof. G.L. Peiris raised the quality of the discussions, the current phase of the constitutional debate has remained bereft of inspirational resonance. The President, too, wanted the people to act the arbiter only after proroguing Parliament where her coalition was known to have been reduced to a minority. Now, by postponing the proposed referendum, Ms. Kumaratunga is hoping to bring about a realignment of forces within the House. The Janata Vimukti Peramuna, an ultra-nationalist outfit of the majority Sinhala community, is trying to engage the President in political negotiations with unpredictable consequences. Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the main Opposition leader, seems convinced that a confident executive President must be able to function in conjunction with a less powerful Prime Minister from an adversarial camp. The notion of a national government, too, is in focus pending the settlement of the constitutional question. However, any such dispensation will be meaningless if it is based entirely on a bargain among the Sinhala-oriented parties. No case can be made to exclude the moderate and reformed Tamil political groups. Hardly addressed in the current debate is the strategic presence of the subterranean kind which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) commands.

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