“It is a dynasty, but by people's choice, a people's dynasty.”
- Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development and Presidential Sibling.
“It is a dynasty, but by people's choice, a people's dynasty.” - Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development and Presidential Sibling.

Taming the east

In overcoming the Eastern Province’s challenge to their power, the Rajapaksas have browbeaten the judiciary, undermined devolution, and seeded new conflicts.

Tisaranee Gunasekara is a political commentator based in Colombo.

&quot;It is a dynasty, but by people's choice, a people's dynasty.&quot;<br />– Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development and Presidential Sibling.
"It is a dynasty, but by people's choice, a people's dynasty."
– Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development and Presidential Sibling.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa does not hesitate to cavort where men less well-connected fear to tread even gingerly. As Defence Secretary and President Mahinda Rajapaksa's younger brother, he has no need to mind his language. His verbal outbreaks are of the highest political relevance since they provide invaluable glimpses into the opaque mental universe of the Rajapaksas. So when Gotabhaya Rajapaksa repeatedly advocates immediately repealing the 13th Amendment, attention must be paid. Especially so since Rajapaksa equates that Indian-induced legislation (which introduced power-devolution in Sri Lanka) with the Norwegian-brokered Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) of 2002. Says Rajapaksa: "The 13th Amendment and the CFA didn't serve the people of Sri Lanka. Instead they facilitated interests of various other parties, including the LTTE. Interestingly, both supported the separatist cause."

Hitherto, only the most diehard Sinhala supremacists decried the 13th Amendment as pro-LTTE and pro-separatist. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's public endorsement of those outré views marks a menacing new turn in Lankan politics. That dangerously fallacious equation repackages the 13th Amendment as a threat to national security, enabling the Rajapaksas to condemn its supporters and defenders as traitors.

Basil Rajapaksa, another Presidential Sibling and the Minister of Economic Development, took the argument a step further by advocating the replacement of provincial-level devolution with village-level decentralisation: "The Janasabha system is the unit of devolution… It is a new village concept…. Now, we have amended the Constitution for the 18th time. We will now do so for the 19th time." The icing on this anti-devolution confection was provided by President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself. In his 2012 Budget speech, the President endorsed his siblings' depiction of provincial-level devolution as pro-separatist and irrelevant to public wellbeing: "A change in the prevailing Provincial Council system is necessary to make devolution more meaningful to our people. Devolution should not be a political reform that will lead us to separation…."

With all three Rajapaksas ranged against the 13th Amendment, devolution is as good as dead. The 19th Amendment, which would replace limited devolution with minimum decentralisation, is likely to be born as soon as the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike is concluded and a Rajapaksa acolyte placed at the head of the Supreme Court.

The Rajapaksas' antipathy towards devolution, like their antipathy towards such pillars of democracy as separation of powers, judicial independence and media freedom, is rooted in the Siblings' project of achieving familial rule and dynastic succession. As Basil Rajapaksa stated recently, power-centralisation is the Siblings'desideratum: "In other countries who are successful, they were successful because immediately one person he takes the decisions. In Sri Lanka, the main problem is that that is not there, more decisions have to be centralised. [sic]"

For the Rajapaksas, countervailing sources of democratic power are either obstacles to be overcome or threats to be defeated. Thus, in 2010, the democratising (and home-grown) 17th Amendment – meant to establish an independent Constitutional Council that would appoint commissions to run the police, public service, election secretariat and judiciary – was replaced with the antipodal 18th Amendment, which enhanced presidential powers and removed presidential term-limits. Without the 18th Amendment, Mahinda Rajapaksa would have had to retire at the end of his second term, as two of his predecessors did. Thanks to the 18th Amendment he need never retire.

The 13th Amendment, which created the provincial council system, is Sri Lanka's sole existing political solution to the ethnic problem. The regime would know that if the 13th Amendment is axed, it will ignite a political firestorm in Tamil Nadu and compel India to react. Therefore, a gradual undermining of the 13th Amendment would be the Rajapaksas' preferred way of escaping the shackles of devolution. But this piecemeal demolition cannot succeed without the full corporation of the judiciary. But in the last few months, the judiciary has indicated clearly that it will be guided by the constitution, and not by the Rajapaksas' needs. In several landmark rulings, the Supreme Court defended the constitution and resisted efforts at further eroding power-devolution and power-separation.

The breaking point in the contest between the Rajapaksas and the judiciary came when the Supreme Court refused to provide free passage to the Divineguma Bill. Custom-made to transform Basil Rajapaksa into an even more über-powerful minister than he is now, the Divineguma Bill (Bill on Uplifting Lives) is being touted by the regime as a measure of absolute national importance, a panacea for many economic ills, and a bulwark against separatism. Prepared in secrecy, it seeks to create a mega-entity titled the Divineguma Department under Basil Rajapaksa's exclusive control. The new department will have a gargantuan budget of SLR 80 billion – this in a country which has allotted SLR 65.8 billion to education, SLR 1 billion to child development and women's affairs, and just SLR 437 million to post-conflict re-settlement.

Since the functions of the Divineguma Department encroach on powers devolved to the provinces, the Supreme Court ruled that the Bill must be approved by all nine of Sri Lanka's provincial councils. This court ruling angered the Rajapaksas beyond measure. It also placed the newly elected Eastern Provincial Council on the centre stage of national politics for one brief – and, as it transpired – inglorious moment.

The Eastern fiasco
Sri Lanka's Eastern Province is demographically unique; home to all three of the country's major ethno-religious groups in almost equal measure, the East is Sri Lanka's real Achilles' heel. Mishandle the East and the outcome will not be a cleanly bifurcated separatist war. Mishandle the East and the outcome might well be multiple conflicts along fluid lines of demarcation – a bloody kaleidoscope involving Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims (and by extension Buddhists, Christians and Hindus), plus several foreign powers in supportive roles.

The Rajapaksas' decision to hold elections for the Eastern Provincial Council two years ahead of time may have been made in anticipation of an easy victory. In reality, victory proved to be difficult. The entry of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) into the electoral fray presented the Rajapaksa-led ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) with an unfamiliar challenge. That challenge was made even harder when the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) – the country's premier Muslim party and a member of the UPFA – decided to contest the Eastern elections independently and on a largely anti-government platform following its unhappiness with the electoral deal offered by the Rajapaksas.

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