By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

While the fractured opposition UNP/SJB is in a perennial bout to defeat each other and capture/retain power in the Sirikotha the foreign servile JVP, NGO vultures and the TNA as well as the racist constituents of the SJB seem to be making all efforts to thwart the imminent possibility of the SLPP getting a comfortable two thirds majority in the August 5^th Parliamentary elections.  The SLPP’s main collective slogan in the Agust 5^th election has become accord us two thirds majority to get rid of the abhorrent 19^th amendment and make appropriate changes to the 13^th amendment which had been forcibly enforced on us”.  The NGO vultures have already written a plethora of articles and held some media conferences to horrify the voters against allowing SLPP to become successful in their bid, while the patriotic groups have entered the fray in support of getting two thirds majority for the SLPP.

The winning of two thirds majority has become crucial as it is very clear that the Constitutional Council (CC) appointed by the last government will continue to function as an organ outside Parliament and it would politically hinder all progressive measures that will be taken by the new government since this CC is empowered to function until October, 2021.  Already a member of this CC, Javed Yousef has engaged in political activities against the SLPP.  We should not allow this situation to be continued until Octobert 2021 and immediate step should be taken to arrest this possibility by repealing the 19^th Amendment. There should be an only one all powerful government and people’s aspirations need to be fulfilled and the hardships they suffered should be alleviated..

This Javed, a well known UNP flunky who has even served as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Saudi Arabia under the UNP government and now serving as a Constitutional Council member,  has thrown  his weight behind a fresh initiative by civil society grouping, Freedom: People’s Collective project, to prevent the ruling SLPP from securing a two-thirds majority to abolish the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Addressing a group of foreign servile unpatriotic civil society activists at the New Town Hall, Yusuf has emphasiszed the pivotal importance of protecting the 19th Amendment, enacted by the Sirisena/Ranil government.  In spite of the dissolution of parliament, the 10-member CC functions under the leadership of black sheep Speaker Karu Jayasuriya. Yusuf is one of the three civil society members in the CC, established in terms of the 19th Amendment.

Yousuf has emphasized that instead of repealing, the 19th Amendment it should be further strengthened, and has asserted that if not for the Election Commission (EC) established in terms of the said Amendment, the government would have gone ahead with parliamentary polls, on April 25, regardless of the crisis caused by the highly contagious coronavirus.

Yousuf has alleged that the public hadn’t really understood the importance of the reforms brought about by the 19th Amendment and warned that attempts were being made to reverse significant achievements since the enactment of the new law.

At the onset of this meeting, the editor of political weekly Anidda, K.W. Janaranjana, has declared that their efforts were initiated, following talks with former Speaker Karu Jayasuriyawho wanted them to reach a consensus among the civil society on how to deal with a dictatorial administration. Janaranjana has asserted the need for short and long term strategies to face the growing threat posed by the incumbent government project to abolish the 19th Amendment.

Former TNA MP and Jaffna District candidate at the August 5 parliamentary polls, M.A. Sumanthiran (one of the key architects of the 19A along with Jayampathy Wickramaratne ), Self appointed Executive Director of the foreign sustained NGO, Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, former President of the Bar Association Upul Jayasuriya PC, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Lucien Bulathsinhala and Sandya Ekneligoda, the wife of missing media personality Prageeth Ekneligoda, whose disappearance was blamed on the Rodhiya caste Chgampika Ranawaka have attended this Forum. 

The JVP National List Candidate, Lal Wijenayake, who heads a foreign sustained NGO outfit named Lawyers for Democracy which mushroomed in the latter part of another 48 foreign funded NGO outfits in the grand conspiracy to launch an intensive fake news campaign aimed at toppling Mahinda Rajapaksa government, has expressed fears about the SLPP getting two-thirds majority in the election. He has said that it does not augur well for the country politically and the government’s main aim is to dispense with the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and this pseudo Marxist’s main concern is that in the event of introducing a new constitution not only the horrendous19th amendment which he helped his associate Jayampathy to formulate with Sumanthiran but also that the 15^th amendment which was introduced by Premadasa on the behest of Ashroff to reduce the minimum percentage of votes from 12.5% to 5% will get abolished and the JVP will then have no say in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary politics.  Indeed, this is a vital change to be made in the introduction ofa new constitution as it would close the doors of racist political parties such as Muslim Congress, JHU Indian origin Tamils’ TPA, and ACMC which were blackmailing main political parties all these years to stop their blackmailing..

The highly worried JVP National List candidates Ashoka Peiris, Upul Kumarapperuma, Dr. Nishantha Abeysena, Chamila Thushari and Muneer Mulaffer have also expressed views in support of Lal Wijenayake’s demand.

Meanwhile, the notorious political chameleon, Sri Lanka’s worst foreign servile NGO culprit, and intensely docile to Tamil separatism Dayan Jayatilleke, who was a Cabinet Minister in the Varadaraja Perumal’s North Eastern provincial government, and who unsuccessfully attempted to creep into the Viyathmaga professionals group certainly with a hidden motive of creating dissension in the group and who was kicked out by the group has now joined with the slippery SJB group and is reported to have conducted political orientation classes to imbecile Sajith Premadasa amd some of others of the SJB – the shameless jabbering bandits.  After working with Varadaraja Perumal he joined President Premadasa as his advisor and served from 1989 until his assassination.  During this period he went to Kanatte cemetery to attend the funeral of General Denzil Kobbekadwa killed by the LTTE allegedly on the instigation of Premadasa this traitor was stripped naked by the bereaving and angry crowd and chased out of the cemetery premises.  When this tongue twister was nominated as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation, a protest letter signed by 38 individuals and 14 civil society groups was sent to the Secretary of the High Post Evaluation Committee of the Parliament opposing the appointment.  Nevertheless the ignoramus Sirisena, perhaps due to some personal reasons proceeded with the appointment. 

After returning from Russia and after getting repulsed by the Rajapaksas, and having no possibility of getting into the UNP camp either, this shameless nincompoop has found solace in SJB which has got swelled only by persons of his ilk who have no clear destiny or who have joined for personal safety.  He has now taken a prominent role to foil the government obtaining the already conspicuous two thirds majority. Posting an article in Lanka News Brief” website under the title The Tragic Two Thirds Trap”  this political chameleon find faults with President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa for mot rendering the National Anthem in Tamil on the independence day and says that it was a recommendation made by the LLRC appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his second term, headed by a distinguished patriotic public servant, CR ‘Bulla’ de Silva, handed over to the (then) President and cited by Sri Lanka in Geneva pre-2015.

This foreign servile nincompoop then says a parliamentary two-thirds majority is rare in a democracy and it did happen twice in Sri Lanka though and on both occasions, the results across the spectrum, for the country, the state, the government, the rulers and ruling party, were devastating. Nobody gained, but everyone lost. He states that the political blocs that were dominant during the two-thirds majorities were as different from each other ideologically and programmatically as was possible and each was swept into office by a pendulum swing against the other.

This chameleon points out that the centre-left United Front Government (1970-1977) led by the SLFP and headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike and the centre-Right UNP Government (1977-1988) headed by J.R. Jayewardene were the two administrations that enjoyed a two-thirds majority in Parliament and each administration used that majority to produce and promulgate a new Constitution. These constitutions had a disastrous political and eventually economic track record, culminating in political catastrophe.

Coming to his pet subject of Tamil servility he notes that while the first JVP insurrection on April 1971 was a shock, its suppression was an excessively bloody affair which sent wider shock waves throughout society. More damaging over the long term was the mishandling of the Tamil issue.

At the 1970 General Election, the main Tamil party called for a rejection of ethnic separatism and a vote instead for federalism and swept the polls. At the very next General Election, the sole slogan of the mainstream Tamil formation was for a mandate for an independent, sovereign, secular, socialist Tamil Eelam”, and it swept the hustings again. (He deliberately hide the facts that the said Tamil Ealam manifesto was based the despicable Vaddukkodai Reolution which called upon the Ramil youth to take up arms and fight unceasingly until they establish the Ealam). During the term of the United Front government ensconced within its majoritarian two-thirds armour, an irreversible alienation and radicalisation of Tamil consciousness took place.

When the United Front coalition was in the opposition (1965-1970), its fight against the ruling centre-right, socially insensitive, pro-west UNP of Dudley Senanayake was partially distorted in 1966 by the introduction of a racist slogan Dudley gey badey masala vadai”. This campaign was against the lukewarm, minimalist concessions (for District Councils and Tamil as a regional administrative language) that the Senanayake government had agreed to with the Tamil parties.(The government ordered the Police to shoot at the demonstrators and a Buddhist monk was killed and Dudley Senanayake went into records as the first Sri Lankan Prime Minister responsible for killing a Buddhist priest while in office)

When the 1970 General Election came around, the centre-left coalition had a Sinhala chauvinist ideological strand and caucus (of which Nath Amarakoon and V.W. Kularatne were notable personalities). This lobby had a disproportionate influence on policy, and the measure of district-wise and media-wise standardisation of marks for university entrance was promulgated, impacting most adversely upon Tamil students. Their protests were met with severity.

(This nincompoop deliberately hides the background that warranted introduction of the Standardization system by a committee headed by Minister Pieter Keuneman.  It had been veritably found by surveys carried by several individuals and civil society organizations that prior to University entrance examinations, the Tamil professors and lecturers, who were dominant at that time, particularly at the University of Peradeniya, conducted clandestine night classes for Tamil students and apprised them the questions the questions they will face and the answers that should be furnished and also they were instructed to write the phrase Oam” on top of their answer scripts.  Can anyone justify this horrendous and illegal act  of Tamil academics?)

Matters were exacerbated with the promulgation of a new Constitution. The moderate six-point proposal of the main Tamil party was ignored by Madam Bandaranaike and the new Constitution went ahead, rolling back the implicit social contract entered into during the Soulbury Constitution, and entrenching the hegemony of one language and religion in a multiethnic society.

The momentum of a freshly elected Can-Do” President combined with natural popularity of the PM, repugnance-driven public recoil away from an antiquated non-liberal political elite and its track record. The absence of a progressive democratic mainstream alternative to conservative nationalism (unlike in the U.S.A) and the refusal of the JVP to re-boot its appeal by reconfiguring its compromised leadership, make it more likely than not that Sri Lanka will be caught, mainly by default, in the tragic two-thirds trap.   

(This foreign servile and elitist nincompoop should understand that this country lost all its grandeur and heritage, together with all steps taken to modernize and industrialize the country from 1970 under UNP administrations which made the people foreign dependent.  Time has come for all the shackles of foreign bondage and servility mindsets to be removed and the past glory and magnificence to be re-established.  The golden opportunity for this exercise is now knocking on our doors and we should not miss this rare opportunity since the opposition is in shambles fighting each other to capture/retain the party office Sirikotha and Tamil parties are unable to get more than 15 seats.  Hence, all nationalistic minded people should get together devoid of party, colour, ethnic, religious and caste affiliations and ensure the government gets a comfortable two thirds majority on the August 5^th election.)

The pendulum swung to an even greater extent in 1977 than it had in 1970, and J.R. Jayewardene’s UNP won a five-sixths majority in Parliament, not merely a two-thirds.

During the years the UNP government enjoyed a five-sixths parliamentary majority, the island had a new Constitution which erected a Presidential political model qualitatively superior to the Westminster system but distorted by over-concentration and hyper-centralisation of power in the hands of the executive president, with neither the bicameral legislature that accompanies the French presidency nor the strong tripartite demarcation ensuring the separation of powers and checks-and-balances that hedges in the US Presidency.

That period of history, 1977-1988 (the UNP lost the 2/3rds but defeated the JVP in 1989) witnessed massive civil wars, mini-civil wars within civil wars (the ultranationalist JVP and LTTE vs. the anti-racist Sinhala and Tamil Left), serial assassinations, external military intervention, and the world’s worst terrorism until 9/11 in the next century.

The Jayewardene government sought to freeze the two-thirds plus majority by extending the term of the sitting

Parliament through postponing the holding of parliamentary elections on the grounds that stability and continuity are imperative for rapid economic development”—which is an argument we hear once again today, having been proved a deadly dangerous myth in the decade of the 1980s.

(Another silly attempt to mislead the voters! What the Prime Minister says today is that the Siriseba/.Ranil government stalled all the development work and was only involved in avenging former Ministers, parliamentarians, their family members and even respected Buddhist priests.  Foreign  loans obtained since 2015 was utilized for importing super luxury vehicles for Ministers and government MPs who got strangely affected by acute back aches though they entered politics riding bicycles and wearing rubber slippers. Sirisena at the time he left

  A two-thirds majority removes political competition. It makes the system lopsided and unbalanced..

• A two-thirds majority creates a top-heavy system, especially but not only, if honeycombed and made heavier still by layers of preferential/patronage networks based on ethnic, religious, regional, clan, occupational, educational and factional factors. 
• A two-thirds majority removes balance and restraint, and enables you to do things unilaterally just because you have the arithmetic to do so;
• A two-thirds majority means that within your impregnable suit of political heavy armour you think you don’t have to reach consensus through pragmatism and prudence.
• A two-thirds majority is the end of systemic equilibrium and is its very antipode. It is an invitation to adventurism. It removes brakes and encourages speeding which leads to skidding and a crash.
• A 2/3rds majority is not the road that leads to Realism, it is the path that leads to delusion and hubris. It keeps you permanently domiciled in Plato’s Cave, and is not the way out into the much vaster real world.
• A two thirds majority leads you astray from the Middle Path and the Golden Mean, tempting you to extremes. I wouldn’t wish it on any administration, whatever distance I may take from its values, mentality, ideology, discourse, and project.

This Foreign and Tamil separatist poodle who sternly opposes the two thirds majority seems to be hiding his real motive for opposing this imminent possibility, and the promulgation of a nationalistic constitution so that the country get back to its past glory and grandeur.  This Tamil separatist poodle was an extreme advocate of granting 13A-Plus for Tamils saying that it would help to solve all the problems in the country.  While serving as Sri Lanka’s representative in Geneva he misused his diplomatic privileges and mustered the international community to urge Sri Lanka to grnt 13A-Plus, which led the government to sack him from the Geneva post.

To be continued …………………