Referendum on executive presidency, anyone?

With half the world going in for elections this year, President Ranil Wickremesinghe broke his sphinx-like approach to the question of which election is to precede in Sri Lanka when he announced to his ministers this week, that it will be the presidential that will come first.

He kept the date open, but constitutionally it is fixed for October as being the last date. Many were taken by surprise by the comment as they were expecting a Parliamentary election first trotting out theories why that election would be a better choice—for the country, of course.

The guessing game will not cease merely because of the presidential comment. It is not an official statement either. Some even refuse to believe the President, imagining this to be some strategic ploy to get the Opposition wrongfooted. Nothing is a certainty, they argue, pointing out that last year's local government elections were indefinitely postponed even after nominations were called.

In the parliamentary system, as we see in Britain today, the Government and Opposition are locked in an argument on the date when elections will be held with the Prime Minister having the final say. In India, the Government is proposing a 'one country; one election' law that will see the party that wins the national election winning the state governments as well, hopefully. In the US Presidential system, however, election dates are fixed; the entire country knows exactly when the election will be and they elect not only the President but also state Governors, some Senators and public officials on the same day.

The cost Sri Lanka incurs on elections is phenomenal. When earlier it was only a general (parliamentary) election and local government elections that were held, today it’s double that. There are four elections on the cards viz., the presidential, parliamentary, provincial and local, churning out thousands of elected representatives that have to be maintained at public expense.

Recently, the Justice Minister presented a Cabinet paper seeking to change the election law by bringing about a hybrid system of the existing proportional representation (PR) voting system with the old first-past-the-post (FPP) system. His proposal was to have 160 MPs elected on the FPP and 65 on PR. If this country started off with the British Parliamentary system and switched to the French Executive system, now it has a German hybrid election system. No mention in the proposal is made of National List MPs. Again, there is an uproar that this proposal has emerged during election year, and is a ruse to postpone elections.

The minister says the hybrid system is not for the forthcoming elections, but the one after. While governments and parliaments have slept on these reforms for much of their time discussing these over and over again but never implementing anything, that the Government has come up with proposals at the 11th hour triggers suspicion at the timing.

Similarly, there has been the endless, decades-long debate on the abolition of the provincial councils and the executive presidency without a decision. Incumbents don't talk about it while in office, enjoying the powers and privileges while opposition parties howl of its excesses until elections are on the horizon and suddenly fall mute in the belief that the plums of such offices will fall onto their lap.

With the presidential election now a fait accompli, it will cost only an extra sheet of paper for it to be a referendum by the voters seeking their view if they want to continue with the executive presidency. That should give the next holder of that office a message from the country on the legitimacy of the seat he or she occupies.