• தற்போது நிலவும் சூழமைவின் முக்கியத்துவம் என்னவென்றால், முறைமைமாற்றம் என தாம் கருதுவது என்ன என்பதனை போராட்டக்காரர்கள் அரசியல் உயர் வகுப்பினர் ஊடாகச் செல்லாது அல்லது அவர்களின் ஆதிக்கத்திற்குட்பட்ட அரசியல் கட்சிகளின் ஊடாகச் செல்லாது அது பற்றிப் தாமே மிகத் தெளிவாகப் பேச ஆரம்பித்து…
• The significance of the current situation is that the protesters themselves have begun to speak very clearly about what they consider to be a change in the system, without going through the political elite or the political parties under their control. • The root cause of the current problems in Sri Lanka is these two brothers. They are the ones who must take responsibility for this problem and none other than them. The question arises here whether they can be considered a party to any solution, since they are an essential part of the problem? The political messages coming from the ‘Ko Kota Gama’ and other protest sites in Galle Face, Colombo, although ordinary, are sharp. They are unconventional and uncompromising. Their slogans and demands are refreshingly formulated in a new political tradition and have surprised the old political thinkers. Which political party in the opposition – whether mainstream or radical – could have so quickly developed the most audacious and uncompromising political slogans ever seen in Sri Lanka in recent times (The game is over, Kota go home)? These slogans are now seen as a powerful call for a new mass movement demanding political change in Sri Lanka, and a movement that has rapidly evolved outside the traditional frameworks of social movement activity. The main activists are not visible in its wake. They appear to belong to a new generation of young social and cultural campaigners. They are not affiliated with traditional political parties. Some of them are voting for the first time. If the ideas emerging from the citizens engaged in the protests in Galle Face and elsewhere are to be appreciated, they must be demystified and observed with precision. Because their relevance and urgency can be expected to be felt doubly in the coming weeks and months amid deepening political crises.
Systemic Change For months, the protesting citizens have been insisting that their struggle is for systemic change, taking one of the empty slogans used by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and giving it a new meaning. They present their concept of systemic change alongside superficial changes such as the replacement of individuals or political parties who come to power through elections and mischaracterizing them as new beginnings; and disruptive policy changes that are sudden and disruptive.
The system they seek to change refers to the entire institutional structure and practices of government. These include: (a) the dominant political culture (b) the processes and practices of state policymaking (c) how the ruling class governs - and conducts the affairs of the state (d) the declining quality of Sri Lanka's representative system of government (e) the socio-economic system that is the source of persistent inequalities and injustice. A special feature of the current system is that citizens themselves have begun to speak very clearly about what they consider to be systemic change, which cannot be achieved through the political elite or through the political parties under their control. Citizens who are engaged in the struggle to initiate such a process towards systemic change are demanding the resignation of the President, the Prime Minister, members of the ruling party, ministers, other ministers and the entire Parliament. This demand has several implications. First, the President and the Prime Minister must accept full responsibility for the unprecedented misery that the government has plunged the people of Sri Lanka into, a deepening economic crisis and a social crisis with no easy way out. Because of their inaction, they have lost their ability to hold the two most important positions in government. The root cause of Sri Lanka’s current problems is these two brothers. They alone must take responsibility for this problem. Since they are an essential part of the problem, can they be considered a party to any solution? Second, the Rajapaksa clan and the Prime Ministers of these two governments must voluntarily step down to create a political platform for the much-needed systemic reforms of the wider state institutions and political processes. They are the embodiment of Sri Lanka’s worst legacy of wounded democracy, authoritarianism, family rule by a few, and state corruption. As ordinary Sri Lankans know and now fearlessly speak out, the Rajapaksa family has extended its influence across the entire spectrum of Sri Lankan politics. This includes the state, national security agencies, law enforcement and justice institutions, public administration, the media, and even the private sector of the economy. The family’s corrosive influence on Sri Lankan democracy, on party politics, on parliamentary processes, and on values of social harmony is well-known and well-known to all. Sri Lankans, young and old, know very well that if we are to work towards building a new democratic political culture in Sri Lanka, the lure of authoritarian politics – one-man rule with restricted democracy – must be eradicated and those who cling to it and advocate it sent home. This is why the pressure on the members of the Rajapaksa family to voluntarily step down from their positions of power is the main motivation that gives the current citizens’ movement its immense political power. The Rajapaksa family’s tight grip on Sri Lankan politics is not the only obstacle to reorienting Sri Lankan politics in a new direction, as some of the political class slogans suggest. It also reveals that the political class or political elite that dominates parliamentary politics and government institutions must be completely transformed and reorganized. Over the past four decades, the Sri Lankan political class has been undergoing a gradual process of decay and decline in its quality and power due to various reasons. As the protesting citizens have pointed out, one common factor that has contributed to this decline in politics is corruption. The reason for the accusations against the Rajapaksa family that we hear every moment from all the protesting platforms is because many citizens consider the ruling family to be the epitome of all that is wrong with Sri Lanka’s political system. For several decades, citizens have been observing with astonishment how the political class, regardless of their party identity, has indulged in corruption and arbitrary exercise of political power, without any respect for the constraints of laws and norms, and how it has been enjoying the privilege of immunity from the law that belongs to the ruling party. The citizens of Sri Lanka have been witnessing, with general dismay, the abuse of state power by the political class as a means of expanding their own influence. The people have been tolerating and even approving of the shameful scenes in which elected representatives of the people have repeatedly violated the public trust entrusted to them while they are in power. The ruling class and the public administration that we have in Sri Lanka are completely oblivious to the principle of public trust, which is an inviolable rule in public office. The main message coming from the battlefields is that the era of public apathy and the era of turning a blind eye to misrule, corruption and irresponsible governance, which were the grammar of the ruling class, is over. The citizens have been observing the actions and mistakes of all sections of the political class. The people are now demanding that the political class either reform itself or disappear if it is to remain relevant. Some of the slogans of the struggle for the restoration of parliamentary democracy contain some sharp political ideas. Their meaning needs to be demystified and precisely understood. At least two of the slogans raised in the early stages of the struggle were indicative of the crisis of Sri Lanka’s representative/electoral democracy. These were the demands of the ‘Ko Kom Kota’ movement, which targeted President Rajapaksa and all 225 members of parliament, including opposition members of parliament. The demand for the president to resign mid-term should be seen as a reaction to the fundamental weaknesses of representative democracy, which have been outlined in republican political theory since the 18th century. This is the problem of the people having no rights as voters or as elected representatives when the mandate given to the elected representative is violated or disrespected by him. After the voters in Sri Lanka have elected their president, the elected representatives are not given the opportunity to revoke the mandate given to them. This is a major weakness in the presidential republic model in many countries.
The current President of Sri Lanka and the ruling party members of Parliament are particularly targeted by many groups including young men and women, rural farmers, the middle class and the working class, professional groups, Catholic clergy and Buddhist monks as unfit to represent them and unable to meet their expectations and social goals. Many voters are shocked to see the lack of truth, honesty, empathy and ability to govern in these professional politicians. To the elected representatives and elected representatives; These are among the main factors that have created a deep divide between the two. Moreover, the slogans we hear from the protest sites reflect the deep-seated public resentment towards the political leaders of the current government. This is not an ordinary resentment. This is a deeply felt sentiment, expressed most vehemently by the young protesters in particular. It seems as if the three-year relationship with the political leaders for whom these young citizens or their parents enthusiastically voted in 2019 has soured for an entire new generation. This is why their demand for resignation must be seen as a call for the complete withdrawal of the electoral mandate given to the President and the ruling coalition members of parliament in the last presidential and parliamentary elections. However, the Constitution of Sri Lanka does not provide for the withdrawal of those elected in the elections. The only remedy available is a partial constitutional one. That is, the citizens are demanding that the President and the members of Parliament resign from office, as resignation is valid under the Constitution and representative democracy. Therefore, this is a matter that must immediately attract the attention of Sri Lanka’s constitutional lawyers, the higher judiciary and political theorists. It represents the most creative ideas for constitutional reform that have emerged from the minds of the citizens in a context where electoral and representative democracy are being abused by the elected officials and the wishes of the electorate are being completely ignored. Most importantly, the basic idea of ensuring political accountability through the resignation of the elected officials under public pressure comes from the common people of Sri Lanka. Their political imagination is unconstrained by any of the institutionalized approaches to constitutional design that are so dominant in Sri Lanka. It is argued here that in future constitutional and electoral reforms in Sri Lanka, voters should be given the right to recall their elected officials, especially the President, members of Parliament and representatives of other representative bodies, as a way of strengthening the concepts of popular sovereignty and accountability of the rulers to the governed. There are many other slogans and demands that directly or indirectly call for a constitutional revolution in Sri Lanka that aims not only at constitutional reforms but also at a redemocratization project. These go beyond simply repealing the 20th Amendment and abolishing the executive presidency. They call for a program of redemocratization of the state, government, political institutions and practices, and democracy. This should be conceptualized in a Third Republic Constitution, in line with the principles of liberal democratic and social democratic reform goals. A new politics, at the same time, has clearly emerged over the past month in the form of a direct, participatory political process of citizens conducted on diverse platforms. This is a politics with diverse power, without leadership or rigid ideology. Struggle arenas are spaces where citizens of any social class, ethnicity, gender, generation or any other identity are always free to enter and exit, and where they are guaranteed openness. As Hannah Arendt said, these are political spaces where citizens can freely enter and freely meet their fellow citizens, freely discuss, share their ideas for the common good, debate, disagree and act in solidarity for the common good. So what we see in the struggle arenas of citizens is a very different kind of alternative culture of politics. This is fundamentally different from the corrupt, hierarchical, leader-controlled, individual-centered, and bureaucratic, institutionalized, and ideologically driven parliamentary politics that is usually practiced by the political class. It is also a new form of direct democracy practiced in the innovative republican model of republican democracy. In fact, the Galle Face Square and other open-air protest arenas facilitate the direct broadcasting of the voices of free citizens to be heard by other citizens gathered in the arena, rather than through unreliable intermediary agents in the closed chambers of Diyawanna fort. Therefore, the struggle of the people is inherent in the deep desire and demand to rebuild the politics, democracy and public life of Sri Lanka, to restore the position, role, duties and responsibilities of the citizens as sovereigns of the republic and political society. Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda