THE NEUTRALIZING TECHNIQUE OF THE JHU
The MP who spoilt his/her vote in the first round of the election for a speaker in the thirteenth parliament spoilt the plan of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) as well. It was a straight forward numbers game that anybody familiar with addition of positive integers could have understood. The MP is obviously from the opposition ranks and it is very unlikely that he/she is a member of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) the proxy party of the LTTE. I have no intention of guessing the name of the particular MP but it appears that the God Vishnu (Upulvan) who is supposed to be protecting the country and Buddhism was working overtime on last Thursday, in the parliament where many MPs have spoken previously on the subject of protection of Buddhism.
The JHU had expressed different opinions on electing a speaker. It is well known that Rev. Rathana had wanted Rev. Ellawala Medhananda to be elected as the speaker. However, soon the leader of the JHU, not that of the Uththareethara Sangha Sabha of the JHU, Mr. Tilak Karunaratne said a monk could not become the speaker as the monks did not have experience in parliamentary procedure. Even after the statement by Mr. Karunaratne, some "manthree hamuduruwos" entertained the idea of a speaker monk probably thinking that they could manipulate and change the stand taken by the leader on the election of a speaker.
In the meantime two MPs elected under the JHU went missing. According to the JHU sources the two monks had been abducted by the alliance and the party wanted the two monks to resign. There were number of possibilities as far as these two monks were concerned with respect to the election of a speaker. (i) Both of them would turn up in the parliament on the twenty second and vote for the candidate proposed by the government. (ii) Both of them would turn up and vote for the candidate of the opposition. (iii) Both of them would turn up and one monk would vote for the government candidate and the other monk would vote for the opposition. (iv) Both of them would turn up and abstain. (v) Both of them would turn up and one monk would vote for the government candidate while the other monk would abstain. (vi) Both of them would turn up and one monk would vote for the opposition candidate while the other monk would abstain. (vii) Only one monk would turn up and vote for the government candidate. (viii) Only one monk would turn up and vote for the opposition candidate. (ix) Only one monk would turn up and abstain. (x) None of them would turn up.
Among the above possibilities the first would have been the most favourable to the government as it would have boosted the net vote in favour of the government by two. The government had 106 MPs including Mr. Douglas Devananda and with the two monks voting for the government candidate they would have got 108 votes. (Incidentally 108 is an important number in the Sinhala Buddhism, with the ancient Sinhalas apparently having had a number system with base 12). If one were to leave out the 7 other JHU MPs and the ITAK MP who sympathised with Karuna, this meant that the opposition had 109 votes and the opposition candidate would have won if the ITAK MP symathising with Karuna did not turn up as in such an eventuality the opposition would have got 109 votes to 108 votes that would have been poled by the government candidate. The JHU and the opposition were aware of these numbers and they knew that the opposition candidate would have won even without the support of the JHU.
Thus, on the twenty second morning, the JHU was in a position to continue with its noble "paramitha perahera" in the party offered by the Sihala Urumaya and could proclaim from Diyavanna Oya that they would abstain in the election of a speaker. The seven monks of the JHU sitting with the opposition could maintain their noble middle path and the media of Edirisinghes, Sumathipalas, Maharajas and of course the Wickremesinghes could praise the monks for being consistent in their policies and for not taking sides in a petty issue such as the election of a speaker. The seven monks would have known by that time that the other two monks would vote with the government, but they did not think of neutralizing the two votes by casting two of their votes in favour of the opposition candidate Mr. Lokubandara who claimed at the pinkama held in connection with the elevation of Ven. Thirikunamale Ananda Thera to the Anunayaka Padaviya of the respective Nikaya that he was chanting Dhammachakka Pavattana Sutta while the parliament was in a commotion. He said that he does not cling to these posts but he failed to state why he did not withdraw his name when it was proposed in the first instance. It may be that he was clung to the Sutta.
The JHU could afford to be very noble at that time as they were under the impression that the opposition candidate could have won without their support. Many "prthagjanas" who could afford to be noble under normal conditions or conditions favourable to them resort to non noble methods when things are not moving in the direction that they desire. However, as soon as the results of the first round were announced the opposition was in for a shock. Perhaps, a few government MPs, if they had known that a opposition MP was going to vote for them, also would have been somewhat disturbed. (It is very likely that at least one or two government MPs were aware of a defection from the opposition. However, the opposition including the JHU would not have known anything about the defection. Had they known it they would have adopted "neutralizing techniques" at that stage itself.)
The first round ended up with a tie with one vote being spoilt. The spoilt vote apparently had the name WJM Gunasekera in the ballot paper and if not for this spoilt vote the noble case of the JHU would not have been spoilt. If this particular MP had written the name of Mr. WJM Lokubandara the opposition candidate would have been elected the speaker in the first round itself and the JHU would have had no problem at all maintaining its neutral position without adopting a neutralizing position. If the MP had written the name of Mr. DEW Gunasekera, the latter would have been elected the speaker and though the forces behind the JHU would not have been happy with the outcome the JHU could have at least said that they abstained as they did not want to take sides in a petty issue.
However, when the results of the first round revealed that the opposition could not count on the vote of one MP in their ranks the situation took a different turn altogether. The spoilt vote going the government way in the second round had to be stopped. One obvious method was to intimidate the MPs. The opposition MPs were "encouraged" to show the ballot paper to the leader before it was put into the ballot box. However, under protests from the government MPs the second round had to be abandoned.
Then came the third round and the most dramatic. It was now almost certain that the MP who spoilt the vote in the first round would vote with the government making it 109 for the government candidate against 108 for the opposition candidate with the seven JHU monks abstaining. It was time that the abstaining policy (vrtha) of the JHU monks was thrown into the Diyavanna Oya. Only two more votes were needed for Mr. Lokubandara who does not cling to material things including speaker's chair to win and not cling. After all two monks had voted for the government in the first round without being neutralized. Surely the votes of the two monks could be neutralized in the third round. One could even claim, following Azadek in the "Chalk Circle", that in order to follow the middle path as a group of nine, two from the group of seven should give up the middle path.
However, this is not a good argument as the JHU MPs could not consider themselves as a group of nine MPs anymore. The two MPs who sit with the government have for all purposes rightly or wrongly defected from the JHU (they would continue to claim that they are members of the JHU but that does not mean that they would act according to the decisions made by the lay people and the Bhikkus in the JHU - it is well known that lay heavy weights of the JHU had been seen in the parliamentary premises on the day of the election of the speaker and that they were not mere spectators of the drama) and they could not be counted as members of a group of nine. The nine has been reduced to seven as at present and the JHU cannot neutralize votes of the two monks who had defected as the latter now belong to a different group. If the JHU could neutralize the votes of these two monks who now belong to a different group then they should be able to neutralize the votes of the other MPs belonging to different parties (groups).
On the other hand, if the neutralizing argument is valid then the JHU should have taken steps to neutralize the two votes of the defecting monks at the first round itself. Why did not they do that? If we believe in the neutralizing argument then in the first round the JHU had voted for Mr. DEW Gunasekera! Only in the third round they had abstained from voting or followed the middle path.
It is quite clear that the seven JHU MPs abstained in the first round as they were under the impression that the opposition candidate would have received 109 votes to 108 votes that would have been poled by the government candidate and Mr. Lokubandara the self claimed "non clinger" would have been elected as the speaker. The seven JHU MPs adopted neutralizing techniques only after they realised that there was a possibility that the opposition candidate would lose whether he clings or not. The JHU cannot hide the fact that they had wanted the opposition candidate to win the election for the speaker and that their so called neutrality was only a mask. The MP who spoilt the vote in the first round had in the process removed that mask.
Professor Nalin de Silva
>
>
>