Last Thursday, the IMF held their bi-weekly press conference and to the question as to whether there was any update on the Sri Lankan loan, the reply of the external affairs director was that "discussions are continuing, and the finalization of the program, as with any other program, would of course depend on the Executive Board. We don’t have a date for an Executive Board meeting at present on Sri Lanka". Now at least we know where things have got stuck – at the level of the executive board. There is now no doubt that the reasons for the delay are political and not economic or technical. The message that goes out is very clear – only the USA and Europe can deal with terrorism with all the means at their disposal. No other country – not even a giant like Russia can deal with domestic terrorist problems without being lectured and penalized by the Americans. The question is, for how long is the world going to tolerate such blatant double standards?

Lilantha Perera, who resigned from his position as UNP organizer for Colombo North, and from the party working committee, met the president last week. The meeting was arranged by UNP dissident Mano Wijeratne. Perera was the first UNPer to simply resign without coming to an understanding with the government first. But trust the president not to miss an opportunity to win over a UNP dissident especially if he happens to be from the Colombo city. Lilantha Perera comes from old UNP stock, his father Christie Perera having been a very popular urban politician. The conversation with the president had centered on the politics of Colombo city. The exact manner in which Perera will work with the president has yet to be worked out, but in practice, Perera already seems to be thinking of himself as an SLFPer. When Mano Wijeratne returned to his ministry after having received his letter of appointment as the SLFP organizer for Dedigama, it was Lilantha Perera who had welcomed him with a blue garland.

In my previous column, I spoke of the SLFP being badly in need of a facelift. Last week, several UNP dissidents received letters of appointment as SLFP organizers, among them were Mano Wijeratne – Dedigama, Gamini Lokuge –Kesbewa, Hemakumara Nanayakkara – Baddegama and so on. If the UNP dissident group gets reelected, they would provide part of the facelift that the SLFP needs. With a parliamentary election due in just a matter of months, the question is whether the SLFP rank and file will vote for them. Last week, SLFP general secretary Maitripala Sirisena had told a JVP parliamentarian, that it was the UNP dissidents who had protected the government that the JVP had obtained for the SLFP. It might be useful for the UNP dissidents to have a joint advertisement at election time, reminding the SLFP voter of the vital role they played in the wake of the JVP’s pullout from the government. At that time, the UNP even entertained thoughts of defeating the government in parliament. But this was averted by the majority given by the 18 UNP dissidents. Handing over the letter of appointment to Mano Wijeratne, the president had slapped him on the back and asked him, "Is it you or your wife who is going to be the organizer?" This was a reference to Mano’s wife, Bharathi Wijeratne (daughter of Ranajan Wijeratne’s brother, Lofty), who has been a long standing friend of the president ever since she was involved in SLFP politics in the Matara district in the late eighties.

While UNP dissident Hemakumara Nanayakkara has been appointed the organizer for Baddegama, the UNP also has appointed Ananda Lanerolle a new organizer for the electorate. He’s going to have a Herculean task in trying to restore the shattered UNP organization in the electorate. As was reported in this column, almost the entire grassroots organization of the UNP in Baddegama, decamped with Ananda Abeywickrema. Last week, Karu Jayasuriya was in Moneragala to address a meeting of UNP PC candidates at the residence of Jayasundara Wjekoon, a former UNP provincial councilor. The advise Karu gave the candidates is that the entire weight of state power has been brought to bear on the Uva election and especially in the Moneragala district where Sashindra Rajapakse is contesting. Therefore, there is no point in getting into a confrontation with the government and that they should concentrate mainly on a house to house campaign. The fact is that the UNP does not have a snowflake’s chance in hell in the Moneragala district. Between the parliamentary election of 1994 and the 2005 presidential elections, the margin of defeat of the UNP had gone up by 300% in that district, and in the period after 2005, the UNP has not done anything to remedy the situation. The UPFA campaign will also be a low key one, with the emphasis being on Sashindra Rajapakse visiting every grama niladhari division in the Moneragala district, 319 in all, and holding janahamuwas between now an the beginning of next month. It will be surprising if there are any untoward incidents at this election.

Ranil verses the UNP

Last week, there was a meeting of the parties allied with the UNP at Cambridge Place, which was attended by Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mangala Samaraweera, Rauff Hakeem, and Siritunga Jayasuriya among others. The purpose of this meeting was to formulate a common national policy for a UNP-led alliance. A full-blown power struggle has now erupted with the UNP over this question of forming alliances. The leader is going ahead with the task of formulating a common policy with the allies he has gathered around him while the political affairs committee had appointed a committee to decide on a national policy called ‘dinana maga’. In fact this sub-committee of the PAC had its first meeting on Monday last week. Present at this meeting were Karu Jayasuriya, Gamini Jayawickreme Perera, Ravi Karunanayake, Sajith Premadasa and D.M.Swaminathan. This meeting had lasted for about two hours and the main point discussed was the north and east issue. Swaminathan, had acknowledged that the UNP could not win on minority votes alone.

A significant point in this meeting was that the solution for the northern and eastern problem was deemed to be an arrangement within a unitary constitution to develop the social and economic position of all citizens regardless of ethnic, caste or religious background. Even the word devolution had been deliberately kept out though it was on everybody’s minds. An effort was made to avoid toxic terminology. Another meeting of this working group was held on Friday last week, which was attended by party chairman Gamini Jayawickreme Perera, Ravi Karunanayake, Kabir Hashim, and Johnston Fernando.

There was a reason for the poor attendance. Open war has now broken out between the UNP leader and the political affairs committee. A popular column published in a Sinhala weekly last week had launched a scathing attack on the PAC and the general feeling was that this matter had to be sorted out first before getting down to routine business. Most UNPers think that this particular Sinhala columnist speaks on behalf of the UNP leader and they see his hand in the column. A group of UNP parliamentarians is due to meet tomorrow to discuss this attack on the PAC. Members of the PAC itself are going to ask Karu Jayasuriya to convene a meeting of the PAC on July 14 to discuss what they should do if they are under attack by Wickremesighe himself.

Last week’s attack on the UNP reformists in general and the PAC in particular was scathing. It accused the UNP reformists of having sabotaged the UNP’s ‘horn and gon karaththa’ campaign of 2008, by criticizing the manner in which these protests were held. When the leader had formed a committee comprising of reformists to plan and execute such campaigns in the future, this committee had done nothing during the past one year. It went on to say that because the reformists could not work with the party leader, they had been told to work with the deputy leader and that the PAC was being used by the reformists to undermine the UNP. These reformists were accused of being fifth columnists of the government. One of the things said in this article was that the PAC was attacking Mangala who is taking on the government. (Aanduwata gahana mangalata gahanawa.) The reformists are also accused of conspiring to bring disrepute upon the UNP by setting up some UNP parliamentarians who were reluctant to face elections to suggest that the life of parliament be extended without an election and that the purpose of this exercise was to undermine the UNP by conveying to the public the impression that the UNP was fighting shy of facing an election. The article accused the UNP reformists of doing nothing but conspiring in various hotels as to what course of action to take at the PAC or working committee meeting.

Thus there is now open warfare between the political affairs committee and the UNP leader. Last week we saw the phenomenon of the UNP party leader and some of the parties allied to the UNP meeting to formulate a parallel national policy even while another national policy was being discussed by the working group appointed by the PAC. However, one senior member of the PAC explained this situation as a case where many minds have been put together and the parties allied with the UNP and the UNP itself was also formulating proposals and after discussion, a common platform will be evolved, with the views of the main party having precedence. While the UNP was thus at open war with itself, the president scored a major political victory last week by convening the All Party Development and Reconciliation Committee. The TNA also attended the meeting, but questions were asked as to why R.Sambandan. Suresh Premachandran, and Mavai Senadhirajah, the usual team that attends such meetings, were not present. The TNA was represented by N.Srikantha. Sambandan was in Trincomalee, and both Premachandran and Senadhirajah were campaigning in Jaffna. All those who attended that meeting including the UNP, the TNA, and the JHU, expressed satisfaction at the outcome.

Douglas verses Anandasangaree

With regard to the elections that will be held next month, the Uva elections can basically be ignored. The two elections to watch would be the Jaffna MC election and the Vavuniya UC election. The Vavuniya election will of necessity be diluted. There are only 11 seats on the UC but there are six parties contesting and all the parties contesting have some kind of a base in the area. The DPLF (PLOTE), TULF and SLMC, UNP and UPFA (Which is largely EPDP) all have bases in Vavuniya and it is likely that no one party will get more than three seats, with most having only one or two. The Jaffna MC however has 23 seats and there are only four parties contesting – thus there is more room for a clear winner to emerge. But nobody knows what is really going to happen. Northern politics is now a tabula rasa, waiting to be written upon.

The UNP’s Jaffna mayoral candidate, A.A.Satyendra, is a newcomer to politics. Even the mayoral candidate of the ITAK (Federal party) is a relative newcomer to politics – a 45 year old Roman Catholic lawyer, Mudiappu Remedius. The only old hand contesting the Jaffna MC is V.Anandasa-ngaree as the mayoral candidate of the TULF. The fight in Jaffna will thus be between the TULF and the UPFA running mostly EPDP nominees. Anandasangaree has age against him, even though he is exactly the type of person one would expect the Jaffna public to vote for. So the UPFA may in fact have an easier run in Jaffna than in Vavuniya.

Last week, what gained the most public attention was the row between the government and the JHU on the 13th amendment. The bone of contention was not the 13th amendment per se but the full implementation of it which meant ceding powers over land and the police to the provinces. In the first instance it has to be said that these provincial councils are a complete white elephant, duplicating work that can easily be done by the central government. But a degree of self-government has long been a demand of the Tamil leadership and what is rational in administrative terms may not necessarily be acceptable politically. The biggest problem in having a second tier of government is that in a unitary form of government, you need only one good government for the country to prosper. But when there are provincial governments, you’ll need nine good governments, all at the same time, if the people are to prosper! Considering how rare it is to have even one good government at the centre, one shudders to think what will happen when nine good governments are required. The disparities between badly run local government authorities and well run ones will give us an idea of the disparities that will exist once the PC system if fully operational.

Such caveats apart, the main points of contention with regard to the 13th amendment are land and police powers. With regard to land, the 13th amendment clearly states that national irrigation and land development schemes belongs to the central government and the distribution of this land will be according to the national ethnic proportions provided that an effort (only an effort) will be made not to alter the ethnic composition of the province in the process. With regard to other state lands in the provinces, the PC can distribute such lands but they can only make recommendations in this regard to the president, who has the final authority in distributing such lands. One of the suggestions made by Ravaya editor Victor Ivan last week was that the formula worked out by the all party consultative committee in the 1980s, be used as the formula for the distribution of land in the provinces – the proportion of the national population being applied in the case of land belonging to major irrigation and land development schemes, and the district wise proportions of the population being used to distribute land in local schemes.

The provisions regarding police powers in the 13th amendment can be summarized as follows:

* The police force will be divided into a national unit and provincial units. All police officers will wear the same uniform except for a badge identifying whether they are national or provincial police.

* The national police force would have officers from the IGP to constable level recruited nationally. The provincial police force would be able to recruit officers from ASP downwards. The salaries of provincial level police officers shall be uniform throughout all provinces.

* The provincial police force would consist of officers recruited at a provincial level as well as officers seconded by the national police force.

* The number of personnel recruited by the provincial police force will depend on the size and population of the province and will be determined by the provincial administration subject to the approval of the president.

* There will be a national police commission and provincial police commissions responsible for the recruitment, promotion and disciplinary matters of police officers.

* A police officer recruited at the provincial level can be promoted to the national police force subject to a screening process by the national police commission.

* The criteria for recruitment, training, arming and equipping shall be uniform throughout all the provinces and shall be established by the national police commission.

* The provincial police force will be headed by a DIG who will be appointed by the IGP with the concurrence of the chief minister. When there is disagreement between the chief minister and the IGP, the matter will be referred to the president and after making the necessary inquiries, the president will make the appointment. (There is no need for concurrence between the president and the chief minister).

* The national police officers seconded for service in the provincial police force will not in normal circumstances wear uniforms.

* The DIG of the province shall be responsible to the chief minister of the province, and be under his control.

* If a state of emergency is declared in the province, the powers of the chief minister with regard to the police can be taken over by the president.

* In case of a threat to law and order, the president can induct national level police units into the province even without declaring an emergency, but in such cases he will have to consult the chief minister.

* The maintenance of law and order in the province and the prevention and investigation of crime will be the responsibility of the provincial police force. Certain crimes such as crimes against the state and state property, the armed forces, the monetary system, etcetera, will be the exclusive preserve of the national police force.

* The CID or other such unit of the national police can take over an investigation when requested to do so by the chief minister.

* Even if no such request is made, the IGP, can if he deems it to be in the national interest, take over an investigation and entrust it to the CID or other such body of the national police. To do so, he needs to only make the necessary inquiries from the chief minister (concurrence is not necessary). But the IGP needs the approval of the attorney general to do so.

* Under the provisions of clause 154 (G) 1, of the 13th amendment, if the president feels that the administration of the province cannot be carried on according to the constitution, he can take over all or part of the powers of the provincial council. Such a proclamation has to be approved by parliament within 14 days.

The 17th amendment

Given the fact that provincial police powers can be taken over after proclaiming an emergency and the functions of the entire provincial administration taken over by the president with the approval of parliament if it is deemed necessary, these police powers do not seem all that bad. In this country, emergencies are declared at the drop of a hat, and once that happens, the president can take over the police powers of the provinces for the duration of the emergency. One objectionable feature here is the naked politicization of the police force, by placing it under the chief minister. The 13th amendment was drafted in a different era when such things were taken for granted.

When one looks at it without a sense of panic, things don’t look all that bad with regard to land and police powers. They may be worth implementing in their present form if this is a once and for all final solution and not a ‘starting point’ as some want. There cannot be a case of a little now, and more later. This is exactly the fear that the Sinhalese have had - that devolution of powers will lead to demands for further devolution. The present writer also put his life on line in the late eighties, in support of the 13th amendment – that was because we thought a final solution to the ethnic problem had been reached. All our left wing colleagues who died defending this piece of legislation would have died in vain if this was only a starting point.

You don’t put your life on the line to achieve a ‘starting point’. There is a point at which one must say thus far, and no further. The framers of the Indian constitution devolved power to regional units and all talk of devolution ceased after that. And so it should be in Sri Lanka. Many Sinhalese don’t want devolution at all whereas some Tamil parties want a kind of devolution that is separatism in all but name. The 13th amendment would be a suitable half way house. It will be good to see whether the newly convened all party conference for development and reconciliation will be able to agree on these points because the new forum is far more representative than the APRC. The consensus reached should be final.