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Self-interest or national interest?

With defections, crossovers (call it what you will) now being the talk of the town, the seamier side of Sri Lanka’s politics is now on unashamed display. If there is anything that our contemporary political history has taught us, it is that fiddles lead to more fiddles and politicians, who are among the world’s greatest finger pointers, are adept at the game of "what you can do, I can do better."

The old fox, as President J. R. Jayewardene was often called, must surely be chuckling over the antics of his successors who once blasted him for his machinations using the self-same tactics when it suits them. We have to go as far back as 1978 when JRJ amended his new constitution to permit defections only for the duration of the eighth parliament. That device was employed to enable Mr. C. Rajadurai to quit the TULF in which he was a leading member and crossover for a portfolio.

Observers of the day called it a one way traffic arrangement - members of the opposition were free to defect to the government but not the other way around. But JRJ had a point in his favour. The 1977 parliament had been elected on a Westminster-style first past the post system. An MP could claim that he was as much a factor as his party in getting elected and the tradition of permitting crossovers that prevails under the British system. The theory has it that such crossings must be governed by principle; but in practice, "inducements" have been freely used.

Given that the party mattered more than the individual in the proportional representation (PR) type of elections we have had since 1989, there is some logic in the anti-defection clauses. If an MP was elected on the basis of a party list, should not the party have the right of replacing him if he should decide to bite the hand that fed him? There were protections of course, including recourse to the supreme court or a parliamentary select committee. The latter process ensured that the dice was loaded in favour of whoever was in power because the select committee sittings could interminably extend till the dissolution of the incumbent parliament!

There are many arguments for and against PR. The major factor in favour of the system is that the winner does not take all. Under Westminster, a party with 50 percent of the votes may take 90 percent of the seats as has been demonstrated time and again in Sri Lanka’s parliaments. Both the SLFP and the UNP, reduced to less than ten seats on some occasions, have suffered from this anomaly. Remember that in 1977 Mr. Amirthalingam of the TULF became the Leader of the Opposition in preference to Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike whose SLFP had more votes but fewer seats. Under PR such distortions are improbable if not impossible and the country will not risk being subject to the kind of tyranny of two thirds majorities it has known both in 1970 and 1977.

Right now what is being attempted under the guise of a so-called "Conscience Bill" is to enable those UNP MPs who are so inclined to cross to the government side without endangering their seats and give the PA the two thirds majority it needs to enable constitutional amendments. The voters are knowledgeable enough to be cynical about "principles" the defectors may express. They know very well that it is all a matter of self-interest. The questions that are being tossed around include the possibility of the extension of the incumbent parliament or, in the event of its dissolution, what chances the defectors have of getting nomination from their new allies.

Nobody sitting in parliament, unless expecting elevation under a new order, will want elections - they have all gone through an expensive and exhausting campaign and the moneybags funding political war chests are not likely to be as forthcoming a second time round. The UNP particularly will be in a very tight corner. The chances are that it has already spent what was raised and it is very unlikely that losers can find funders at this moment of time. So if it is a question of extending the present parliament, that would look most attractive to many greens. But would the PA want that, given the necessity of what the president recently called a "lamp and pot game"? (The allusion was to a referendum.)

When Mr. C.P. de Silva and his followers crossed-over in 1964 to help defeat Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike’s government, newly aligned with the left, it was on a matter of principle. They opposed the Lake House takeover Bill that was on the cards as well as the entry of the Marxists into what was previously a self-proclaimed "centrist" government. Older readers would still remember de Silva’s speech on that occasion when he said that he wished to live "a free man in a free society." He defected from a position of power in the government knowing full well that what he did would force an election giving the voters the chance of deciding whether he was right or wrong.

That is not the score today. Dr. Amunugama and Mr. Mathew crossed into the cabinet from unimportant opposition benches and the wheeling and dealing now on can mean many things including the possibility of an extension of the present parliament. But that must necessarily mean a referendum unless it is possible to scrap the requirement for one by a constitutional amendment made possible by UNP defectors providing the two thirds majority.

However that be, the people can be sure of one thing: self- interest rather than the national interest is what will motivate the political actors.

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