Who’s the ghost?

It wasn’t the eleventh hours but rather well past it when a tawdry attempt was made to abolish the executive presidency at an emergency cabinet session held this Thursday.

The extraordinary cabinet session was summoned by the president who said it was done so at the request of ‘someone’ but did not divulge who the ghost was.

True, Mahinda Rajapaksa was known to be for abolishing the executive presidency – it had been his election promise in 2005 and in 2010 – true the JVP was for it, true the UNP and the SLFP and even some of the minority parties were all for it.

But the nagging question was whether it was the time to even consider the idea and hoist upon the nation a new constitution that had not received sufficient public discussion and debate, especially at a time when the country had entered the twilight zone with the election commission having declared on Wednesday October 7 as nomination day and November 16 as presidential polls day, at a time when applications for postal votes were being issued and deposits of candidates were already being accepted?

Abolishing the executive presidency at such a time would have been akin to staging Hamlet without the Prince. Plus the constitutional procedure would have to be followed and a two thirds majority in Parliament plus a national referendum would have to be held. It was not a simple affair like amending some minor traffic law.

So who mooted this foolish motion that served only to bring the present Government into further contempt? And why did the government, having had four and a half years to keep its solemn election promise, suddenly decide to raise the old ghost from its sepulchre at the very last moment when the time was well past to do so? Luckily the move was thwarted.

As the Good Book says: There’s a time for everything. And this was certainly not a time for constitutional abolishment but a time for the constitutional duty to hold presidential election. Unfortunately some in the cabinet failed to grasp this biblical wisdom. Or, for that matter, lacked simple common sense.