One of the most democratic features of the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka which guarantees the sovereignty of the people is the Referendum. Referendum is the word used to describe the constitutional device which enables the people to express their views on the policy of a Government or on legislation proposed by it, said President J.R. Jayewardene, in retirement, at a lecture delivered on 14 February 1993 at the BMICH.
In 1982 the Government held a referendum to seek and obtain parliamentary sanction to postpone the General Election due to be held on or before August 1983. The Referendum to consider the decision of Parliament postponing the elections followed as a matter of course under the Constitution.
The postponement of elections had taken place earlier and in the United Kingdom whose parliamentary practices it follows closely. During World War I and II General Elections in the United Kingdom and in Sri Lanka, too, for it was a colony till 1948, had been postponed by Orders-in-Council under the Monarch’s authority.
In Sri Lanka, elections to the Legislative Council due in 1924 and to the State Council due in 1936 were postponed: The first, till 1931 to introduce the Donoughmore Constitution, Universal Franchise and the State Council and the second till 1947, to introduce the Soulbury Constitution, Dominion Status and the House of Representatives.
The first election under the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka of 1978 to elect a President was held on 21 October 1982. President J.R. Jayewardene won by a majority of 902,737 votes polling 3,450,811 votes (52.9%) to his chief opponent Hector Kobbekaduwa’s 2,545,436(39.07%).
After this, the Government and the United National Party (UNP) had to consider the General Election which had to be held on or before August 1983. The main reason for considering an extension of the life of Parliament was the views expressed at the Presidential Election meetings by important members of Kobbekaduwa’s party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), advocating violence, killing of leaders of rival parties and threatening to set up a dictatorship if they won the Presidential Election. They were called Naxalites.
A Commission (see Sessional Paper No. 111 of 1983) headed by senior and distinguished Police Officer Tyrrell Goonetillake, was appointed to consider why these speeches were made and the finding was that it was not an attempt to overthrow the Government immediately but to do so if their candidate won the Presidential Election, without waiting for the peaceful constitutional changes of Government.
Some of the Commission’s findings were as follows:
At page 24 of Goonetillake’s report he says that another aspect of the SLFP’s campaign was the vitriolic utterances attributed to certain members of the Buddhist clergy at SLFP meetings.
At Veyangoda on 15 October 1982, a speaker stated that after the Presidential Election, when Kobbekaduwa arrives at President’s House he will not walk on the red carpet but on a stream of blood.
At a meeting at Angoda on 16 October 1982 it was stated that after the 21st having brought JR and other unjust people to Galle Face Green and having stripped them we would assault as they deserve for the torture they have inflicted on the masses, and in the event of their death we will pull out their entrails and feed them to the dogs and crows.
At Meetiyagoda on 12 October 1982 it was stated that if Kobbekaduwa wins we can impeach the present President and put him to death.
Vijaya Kumaratunga endeavoured to get the Maithripala Senanayake Group to join the Kobbekaduwa camp to oust Sirima Bandaranaike and Anura Bandaranaike from the SLFP.
(For details see, also, the Debate in Parliament, on Goonetillake’s Report in Hansard of Tuesday 7 September 1983, at column 74 etc.)
They had a plan to take over the Army and carry out a campaign of terror. Several Members of Parliament of the UNP had to leave their houses because of the threats of violence hurled at them.
The Referendum was held on 22 December 1982. The total votes polled were 5,747, 206 (70.5%) and 3,141,223(54.66%) voted for the extension of the life of Parliament and 2,605,983 (43.3%) against.
UNP Members of Parliament since victory at the Referendum meant their parliamentary life would be extended by six years without an election voluntarily handed in letters of resignation from their seats, to be used as the President and Party wished.
Not only that, once the Referendum results were announced, electorate by electorate, as the General Election pattern of polling votes was followed, 17 UNP Members of Parliament who did not obtain a majority of votes in their electorates, resigned from their seats. At the 18 May 1983 bye-election 14 of them were returned.
Chandra Edirisuriya
