The National People’s Power (NPP) which never asked for a two-thirds majority in Parliament has now got one. Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. Perhaps that line from Twelfth Night could be paraphrased somewhat and made to fit the circumstances in which the NPP finds itself. The party that won the Presidential election two months back, has now been in fact given a two-thirds plus majority by voters who rewarded the NPP with the 150 needed to cross the hump towards a super-majority, and then added another nine seats to make up a grand total 159.
How can the NPP which never asked for such an extreme result — extreme albeit in a positive sense — bear the burden of this massive vote of confidence? Is it a vote of confidence, or is it a mandate based on expectations? If the expectations are so sanguine that the people thought only a two-thirds majority would suffice for those who are expected to deliver, how is the new Government supposed to react?
However, first for the purposes of record, the achievement has to be registered for what it is. A single party achieved a two-thirds majority for the first time under the Proportional Representation ( PR), whereas other parties had to cobble together a few willing allies to reach the two-thirds in Parliament. For example, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Pohottuwa won 145 seats in 2020 but had no fears about garnering a two- thirds (150) in Parliament when required. This time a single party has nine seats more than the 150 required, which is mind-boggling as it bestows a mandate, a super-majority and then some.
ACCOUNTED
The super vote given to the NPP on Thursday can only be discussed in terms of superlatives. Records were broken all over the place, and the highest number of seats by a single party in Parliament is just one of them. Records were broken for preferences, in Gampaha and Colombo by Vijitha Herath and Harini Amarasuriya, for instance.
So, how is such a superlative victory to be digested, not merely by voters and analysts, but by the regime itself? For most, including perhaps the President and his party, the extent of the win would have been unexpected. So what accounted for it?
Also, what turns on it? Would this juggernaut make the next five years of NPP rule historic by virtue of sheer numbers? Or is the NPP to be chastened by the fact that no two-thirds majority has quite ended well for the holders of the accolade?
For example, Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA received a two-thirds majority in 2010, went onto amend the Constitution, lifting Presidential term limits, and then went onto be memorably defeated at the Presidential election of 2015. Gotabaya Rajapaksa also managed a two-thirds majority for the SLPP in his Presidential tenure, and went onto lose his job in a popular uprising in 2022, a mere two years later.
In that context, a two-thirds majority has been the kiss of death. The current NPP regime would have to make sure it does not end that way for them. Neither would the NPP want to make the super-majority an instrument of oppression, as J.R. Jayewardene did when he received a five-sixths mandate under the first past the post system in 1977. Jayewardene used his super-majority to roll up the electoral map and avoid elections, after getting rid of a sitting Supreme Court in its entirety, under the pretext that a brand new Constitution calls for a brand new Supreme Court.
Why did the NPP receive this super-majority? It’s partly because the party deserved it of course as the new regime compared very favourably with recent previous regimes, in an interregnum after the Presidential election that was marked by its understated efficiency. But the two-thirds majority is also at least partly due to the fact that the Presidential and parliamentary elections were so proximate, barely two months apart. Never have the two elections been held in such quick succession, a fact that has — in this writer’s mind at least — a bearing on this massive electoral romp.
In that sense, while the super-majority is an achievement, it has also to be considered a quirk of circumstances. The quirky aspect is that the timing was immaculate. Hats off to the NPP for that strategic calculation to dissolve Parliament barely a day after the Presidential election. But, it also means that the numbers are not necessarily a vote on the merits; like many other things in life, the vote also depended on timing, and the fact that people always go with a winner if sufficient time hasn’t lapsed to wash the sheen off a recent victory.
Considering all that, the NPP should approach the unprecedented two-thirds win with some humility, which is exactly what it seems to be doing. Tilvin Silva, the party grandee, told a post-election press conference, that the party didn’t ask for two-thirds majority but got one because the people had realised that the Opposition had lied about them before the Presidential election. In other words, he said the proof of the pudding was in the eating, and that the people upon realising that the NPP’s advent did not signify the end of the world as the Opposition had predicted, came around to voting for them.
No grandiose words there, and no tilt towards majoritarian excess such as radical systemic change through tinkering with the prevailing Constitutional order. It doesn’t mean that the NPP may not consider Constitutional overhaul or Amendments in the near future, but it’s salutary that the party is not consumed in hubris by the sheer heft of this week’s result.
ASININE
Besides all that, the work that’s called for now in the main, doesn’t require massive numbers in Parliament, and the regime must be aware of this fact. What’s needed is to turn the economy around, and improve the living conditions. In that backdrop, the two-thirds super-majority is mostly a psychological boost, which gives the regime the moral courage to embark on its tenure with confidence.
Who could now cavil about the fact that the President didn’t get more than 50 percent of the vote at the Presidential election? Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on the campaign trail that he and Anura Kumara Dissanayake aren’t different because both didn’t win outright majorities at the Presidential election. He must be discovering how asinine his comment was, in the context that the AKD regime now has 159 seats compared to his five in Parliament.
A win is a win, and a massive win is a massive win, no matter the timing or any of the surrounding circumstances. The NPP’s real achievement is that the party hierarchy knew this, and made all the strategic calculations that have resulted in this mandate. All those who belittled the NPP’s Presidential election victory, even with a ten percentage point lead, would now have to eat some quantity of crow looking at this result which gives the governing party a mandate that is second only to J.R. Jayewardene’s 5/6th juggernaut that was obtained under an entirely different electoral system (first past the post). It’s doubtful even J.R would have notched up 159 under the PR.
This massive mandate is in one sense burdensome, but so far the NPP has shown it has the broad shoulders to carry such a burden with dignity. This also means that the party has been given everything it needs to achieve its stated goals. Not for nothing is a mandate bestowed, as wags would claim in their local argot. AKD and his new Cabinet would now hardly have time to celebrate. But at least they can stave off the hordes that were yapping at their heels, claiming that the party doesn’t have much of a mandate. That lament most certainly did not age well at all, but soured like a pot of curd.
The NPP hasn’t merely arrived now, it owns the arena. As for the people, they have reposed such unwavering faith expecting the leadership to deliver, and they’d hardly be able to wait.
