Two hoots for democracy; for that matter, constitutions too

There is good news and bad news. The good news is that the current Speaker of Parliament, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in a seeming mood of bravado, was quoted in a local newspaper as saying he would resign if the intended no-confidence motion against him is carried.

That is not all. In fact, he set a deadline. He would be gone in two minutes, he said with certain certainty, it would seem.

Would one minute not suffice? Well, even that might be too long for several representatives of the people who sit in what was once considered an august assembly.

After all, he has little or no constitutional baggage or a history of accumulated parliamentary procedure to carry when he is sent home by an irate collective of people’s representatives tired of the ongoing parliamentary antics.

The bad news is that, despite his macho announcement that he would be gone in a few seconds, this is a mere soap opera.

How many ministers and others holding high office have we heard over the years claim they would resign if they are defeated at a vote or if some allegation is proved?

Plenty, I am sure, because those who make bravura announcements are those who know only too well that political parties will back in parliament those they have placed in positions of influence and importance to keep their interests afloat.

But what it does do is add to other established truths in the eyes of many members and legal experts that have caused the Opposition to set in motion a no-faith motion.

That motion was first motivated by the Speaker’s approval of the Online Safety Act, which has raised serious criticism in Sri Lanka and abroad.

While that motion was in motion, if I might put it thus, the Speaker, as Chair of the Constitutional Council, claimed that acting IGP Deshabandu Tennekoon’s nomination as the new IGP was confirmed by the Council when a deadlock in the voting was broken by casting his deciding vote.

Sri Lankans who have followed the outcome of national elections and even a referendum know only too well that there have been charges of ballot box stuffing, ballot boxes disappearing and intimidation of voters and other shenanigans over the years that distorted election results.

But now it has reached a stage where foreign ministers and their mouthpieces try to create a “New Math” where abstentions at voting are added to one side or the other to deliberately distort the result to suit one’s case.

It would be recalled how the government once claimed that Sri Lanka defeated a largely Western resolution to condemn the government at the UN Human Rights Commission.

And how did our mathematical maestros in government arrive at this weird conclusion? Take a look at the voting in Geneva on that occasion.

The resolution critical of Sri Lanka was supported by 22 member countries, while 11 voting members favoured Sri Lanka. The rest of the commission of 47 members in total—that is, 14 members— abstained.

Now what do other masterminds who would not accept the simple truth that Sri Lanka was well and truly defeated do? They engage in arithmetical artifice by adding the 14 abstentions to the meagre 11 votes they secured and claim that 25 member states did not support the resolution against the 22 that did.

The logic is this: 14 members abstained, therefore they did not support the resolution. By the same logic, it might be argued that 14 countries did not vote in favour of Sri Lanka, so they were not in support of Colombo.

Nations, like people, abstain for various reasons. One cannot and should not then try to assume reasons for their abstention.

As my friend and former colleague Thalif Deen argued in his book “No Comment... And don’t quote me on that”, there are occasions when there is a stream of diplomats heading to the toilets when voting on one issue or another is about to begin.

The moral of the story is not that the call of nature is more important than the national interest! It was perhaps in the national interest.

According to Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, who was a participant in the voting, four members voted in favour of the nominated candidate, two members voted against it, and two members abstained.

The Constitution calls for five members to approve any nomination for it to be accepted. In the absence of the required number, the Speaker, divines that the two who abstained were opposed to the nomination, and so there were two votes each for either side.

In that situation, the Speaker used his casting vote to break the deadlock.

The bad news is that, despite his macho announcement that he would be gone in a few seconds, this is a mere soap opera