Sri Lanka's powerful president: Putting the raj in Rajapaksa

There is no stopping the remorseless ascent of Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president. A year ago this week his government routed the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after a 26-year civil war. This January, after a campaign featuring songs lauding him as a “king”, his grateful citizens re-elected him in a landslide. His party then cantered to victory in a parliamentary poll in April. His main rival in the presidential race, Sarath Fonseka, a former army chief, faces a court-martial and poses no threat. Now the president seems intent on an extraordinary concentration of power into his family’s hands, and on its prolongation.

Mr Rajapaksa himself, besides being president, is minister of defence, finance and planning, ports and aviation, and highways. In all, he is directly responsible for 78 institutions. One, the defence ministry, is a condominium with his brother, Gotabaya, the defence secretary. Besides control of the armed forces, police and coast guard, it has expanded its remit to take in immigration and emigration, as well as, curiously, the Urban Development Authority and the Land Reclamation and Development Corporation.

Another Rajapaksa brother, Basil, is economic-development minister and senior presidential adviser, with oversight, among other things, of wildlife conservation and the boards of both investment- and tourism-promotion. He also runs a presidential task force set up to develop the war-ravaged north and east.

A fourth brother, the eldest, Chamal, has forsaken his former cabinet seat. All is not lost, however. He has been elected unopposed as speaker of parliament. In the unlikely event that the president were to face impeachment, which would require a motion signed by at least half of the members of parliament, the speaker would have to agree to entertain the motion.

The family reportedly also wants to leave its imprint on Sri Lanka’s constitution. One aim is to lift the present bar on presidents serving more than two six-year terms. A second is to revise the 17th amendment to empower the president to appoint members of a number of important bodies, such as the human-rights and election commissions, and others covering the police, public service and the investigation of corruption. This would defeat the purpose of the 17th amendment: to curtail presidential power. It would also take power away from ethnic minorities, to whose representatives the 17th amendment gave a say in some appointments.

A third proposed change is to enable the president to take part in parliamentary proceedings. Basil Rajapaksa has said this will be similar to “question time” in Britain, “though not exact”. Far from weakening the “executive presidency”, as many have advocated, the reforms would in effect give Mr Rajapaksa some prime-ministerial trappings as well. It is unlikely, however, that the president will face the sort of abuse hurled at British prime ministers in the House of Commons.

He does, however, face some criticism. At home, it is somewhat muted, though the Sunday Leader did note that Sri Lanka “seems to have reached a point of one-family rule. Every aspect of our lives from the registry of our births, to the taxes we pay…and the documents we must carry in order to move freely is under the control of Rajapaksas. Their domination is absolute.” That newspaper is a rare source of dissent. Its former editor was shot dead by unknown assassins last year.

Critics also lament the lack of progress towards national reconciliation. Despite insisting that its enemy was the LTTE, not the Tamil minority it claimed to represent, the government has done little to ease Tamil grievances. And far from making serious plans for the devolution of power, seen as essential to ethnic harmony, the trend is relentless centralisation.

Criticism is even fiercer abroad. Human-rights groups marked this week’s anniversary with a renewed push for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes by both sides. The International Crisis Group, a think-tank, produced a report offering evidence of abuses by government troops, including attacks on hospitals, humanitarian-aid convoys and civilians. It estimated that 30,000 civilians or more may have died in the war’s final weeks, and that “all but a small portion of these deaths were due to government fire.”

Perhaps in an effort to deflect external pressure, the government has announced the formation of a “Lessons learnt and reconciliation commission”. But, based on the experience of previous national commissions of inquiry, outsiders are unlikely to trust this one. Its terms of reference are anyway not to investigate alleged war crimes, but the whole period from February 2002, when the government and the Tigers signed an abortive ceasefire.

The Tigers were brutal and loathsome. Yet Sri Lanka’s leading Tamil party in the north of the country marked the anniversary of the war’s end as an occasion for mourning. The government, by contrast, planned a big parade in Colombo. It had to be called off because of flooding.

Little else is raining on the Rajapaksas’ parade. The president is just 64, seems in good health and is still popular among the Sinhalese majority. Nothing seems to stand in the way of a long Rajapaksa raj. And, moving in from the wings, his son, Namal, elected to parliament in April, seems set to follow in his father’s and uncles’ footsteps.

© The Economist