The Presidency
'A man who sees truth and in his personal life lives it. He sees truth for his people and agonizes over their inability to see the truth'.
That was how President Jayewardene was described in the Editorial Comment of Sunday Observer of 24th April 1983. It was forty five years since he first started in 1938 as a member of the Ceylon National Congress and wading through his political life in various capacities handling the portfolios of Finance, Food and Agriculture, Local Government and Housing, State and Tourism, as Deputy Leader and Leader of the United National Party, Leader of the Opposition and Prime Minister, acquiring a wealth of experience in politics, governance and foreign policy. There was hardly another man who could match the political prowess and statesmanship of President Jayewardene.
During the great span of fifty years of political life he had opponents and political adversaries who described him as a master tactician and a shrewd schemer, but unperturbed, he searched for ways and means to translate his vision into reality. In December 1966, delivering the key note address at the 22nd annual session of the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science for the first time, he expressed the necessity for a change from the then existing Westminster style of Government. Advocating the Presidential system he declared;
“The Executive is chosen directly by the people and is not dependent on the Legislature during the period of its existence for a specific number of years. Such an Executive is a strong Executive seated in power for a specific number of years not subject to the whims and fancies of an elected legislature, not afraid to take correct but unpopular decisions because of censure from his Parliamentary Party!”
It is said that even before he expressed this view in public he brought up the idea of the executive presidential system at a Working Committee meeting of the United National Party. It was not supported. But after rejecting the proposal Dudley Senanayake who presided over the meeting is reported to have commented, ‘the USA became the most powerful country in the world because of this system'.
As the leader of the UNP he found the desired stage set for the expression of this view for constitutional reform. In the election manifesto of 1977, the UNP boldly discussed the possibility of vesting executive power in a President elected by the people. The Constitution will 'preserve the Parliamentary system we are used to for the Prime Minister will be chosen from the party that commands a majority in Parliament and the Cabinet will be appointed from among members elected to Parliament'.
The landslide victory in 1977 with 5/6th majority propelled the Government to expedite the formation of the new constitution and on 4th February 1978 President Jayewardene relinquished his position as Prime Minister and a member of Parliament and was sworn in as the Executive President.
He focused on three main objectives in formulating the new Constitutional reforms by restructuring the government and democratic revival, economic regeneration and accommodation of minority interests.
Unlike his predecessors who were mere figure heads with no direct say in the political and economic affairs in the country, the new Executive President under the new Constitution was 'both an Executive in the French style and a Prime Minister in the British mould'. He is a member as well as Head of the Cabinet but yet he valued the sovereignty of the Parliament and the Judiciary in all important matters of State. Proportionate representation and recognition of minority rights are the other important features.
The President being a fixed executive elected by the people is not removable except under specific circumstances outlined in the Constitution. Whilst the Cabinet and Parliament is replaced with every change of the government, the President continues as long as the people of his country want him but not for more than two terms.
