The incident where the Chief Minister of the Uva Province allegedly ordered the Principal of a school to kneel as a ‘punishment’ has been generating much discussion over the past week and questions have been raised whether this is the new face of ‘yahapaalanaya’. At the time of writing, Chief Minister Chamara Sampath Dassanayake has resigned from his portfolio of Provincial Minister of Education.
President Maithripala Sirisena has ordered Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundera to conduct an inquiry into the incident. Dassanayake surrendered to the Police shortly afterwards, and was produced in courts and has now been released on bail.
Interfering
This is not the first instance of a politician interfering with the duties of a government officer. There was the infamous incident where then Minister Mervyn Silva tied a Samurdhi officer to a tree, with television cameras in attendance. That was way back in 2010.
That this incident is hardly talked about now- and the fact that Silva spent many years in Parliament thereafter is testament to the fact that the law does not apply equally to politicians.
In fact, no one will be surprised if Silva makes a comeback at the next general elections! This is also not the first instance where a politician got a teacher to kneel before them.
Former Wayamba Provincial Councillor Ananda Sarath Kumara allegedly compelled a teacher to kneel before him in public before the teachers and students of the school she was attached to, apparently for admonishing his daughter.
There was a similar public outcry over that incident at that time. However, Sarath Kumara was subsequently appointed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) organiser for the Anamaduwa electoral district indicating that local political considerations always override moral and ethical values even in the ‘yahapaalanaya’ government.
We do not wish to prejudge the allegations against Chief Minister Dassanayake. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence just as much as Ravi Karunanayake is entitled to the presumption of innocence in the alleged Central Bank bond scam.
However, while Karunanayake was compelled to step down from the coveted Finance portfolio, Dassanayake continues as the Chief Minister of the Uva Province. President Sirisena’s swift action in ordering an inquiry into the incident must be commended. Still, it must be said, the President’s directive followed a significant amount of pressure exerted by other political parties and the issue soon became a bone of contention at the local government election campaign.
Holding a brief
There were concerns that it could snowball into an island-wide trade union action by teachers, which would have undoubtedly hurt the SLFP’s chances at the upcoming elections. Faced with mounting pressure from within his own party and suggestions that his actions were damaging the SLFP, Dassanayake has opted to step down from the Education portfolio. Yet, we saw the spectacle of State Minister of Highways, Dilan Perera, holding a brief for Dassanayake. Perera was to propose a conspiracy theory, stating that the Chief Minister is the victim of an “anti-SLFP” conspiracy as he is involved in the local government elections. It is interesting that Ravi Karunanayake too sees a conspiracy in his current predicament!
This begs two questions. Firstly, had there been no ongoing election campaign, would the Chief Minister have relinquished his portfolio as Provincial Education Minister? Secondly, if the argument for stepping down from that portfolio is that it would facilitate an impartial inquiry, can we be satisfied that such an impartial inquiry can be conducted while Dassanayake still continues to function as Chief Minister of the Province? In most countries with mature democracies, an incident of this nature would spell the end of their career for a politician. There are nations where ministers resign when there is a crippling strike in a sector under their purview.
We are not suggesting that Sri Lanka should follow that example- for strikes are dime a dozen in this country and we will soon have no Cabinet of Ministers left- but it appears that our politicians will do their utmost not to step down from their posts.
There was an era, not so long ago, when a cabal of politicians ruled the roost and got away with almost anything- even rape and murder.
Pradehsiya Sabha members were accused of rape and murder. Parliamentarians were accused of murder. For the former to be convicted, it took pressure exerted from the government of Britain and the threat of a boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo. For the latter to be convicted, it took a change of government.
Impunity and immunity
That era ended because the majority of voters preferred to vote out of office a charismatic President who won a war against the most ruthless terrorist organisation in the world, rather than be subject to a system of government where one family and all those loyal to them acted with impunity and immunity against prosecution.
Surely, the objective of that exercise was not to replace that government with another where the rule of law does not apply to politicians? A silver lining is the fact that, under the new system of elections, voters will not be marking preferences but they will be voting for candidates of a particular division or electorate. This will be done at the local government polls for the first time since the introduction of proportional representation (PR) in 1989.
This allows the voter to reject candidates if their conduct has been deplorable. The new system has not yet been agreed upon for general elections but it is hoped this will be incorporated into the process of constitutional reform. Sending corrupt or deviant politicians home is the only way in which they will learn the consequences for their actions- and that is what was lacking in the twenty eight years that the PR system of elections was in operation: it allowed politicians with ‘name recognition’ to return to Parliament, no matter how rotten they were.
Chief Minister Chamara Sampath Dassanayake is not the problem- he is merely a symptom of a greater malady that has afflicted our political system.
Therefore, dealing with the symptoms is not enough; the cancer itself must be eradicated.