Cohabitation in Sri Lanka
[July 4, 2003]

By R.K

An uneasy cohabitation is an oft-used phrase in Sri Lankan politics today. It is ill at ease, because the main players in Governance have been forced into a ‘political partnership’. The Executive President is from one political party while her Prime Minister and the cabinet, are from another.

H.L. de Silva, a leading lawyer, in his ‘Felix Dias Bandaranaike Oration’ spoke about the ‘myth of political co-habitation prevalent in the country as a solution to the periodic political convulsions that afflict us’ and explained how this situation came about.

It is unrealistic to expect the President of one main political party and the cabinet of another to co-habit in harmony simply because they have been elected as such. There are bound to be differences of opinion, which could be worked out only if both parties are willing to cooperate.

According to de Silva the rationale for the introduction of the Executive Presidency was the need for it to be free from the shackles of Parliament and he notes J.R. Jayewardene did not envisage a situation when a President, despite the full panoply of executive powers, would virtually be under siege, from hostile-majority in the Legislature determined to thwart Presidential decisions.

De Silva says the ‘concept’ of political cohabitation did work amicably in France between a President and Prime Minister. In France the two parties reached a mutual understanding in the greater interest of the country. The same considerations do not apply to Sri Lanka.

The Penguin Dictionary of Politics defines cohabitation as “A term used to describe the period between 1986 and 1988 when a socialist French president, Francois Mitterand, and a center-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, together formed the government of France. This is not a problem unique to France. It can arise in any political system where a president with real political power is elected at a different time, or separately, from the parliament”.

In France, President de Gaulle had during his Presidency assumed considerable powers and authority as President, more than what was strictly warranted by the actual terms of the French Constitution. Hence there was room for flexibility of interpretation in a changed political context that occurred later. It was when the balance of political influence and authority had altered in favour of the Prime Minister Jacques Chirac in later years, during the time of President François Mitterrand that the cohabitation theory evolved. Strangely history repeated itself in June 1997 when President Jacques Chirac faced a similar situation when Lionel Jospin was elected Prime Minister. 

Mr. de Silva calls the relationship between the Sri Lankan President and the Government a forced ‘shotgun wedding’, which can never be the foundation of an even extra-legal cohabitation.

He says an authentic relationship of cohabitation needs to be founded on mutual respect and trust, restraint and forbearance, whereas “current exponents of cohabitation are unable to distinguish it from ill-concealed coercion and intimidation by the dominant partner”.

A former US Envoy in Colombo Teresita C. Schaffer and a Sri Lanka watcher is not so pessimistic about the current cohabitation in Sri Lanka. She says in her article in the South Asian Monitor published less than a month after Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Prime Minister “…making this enforced cooperation work will be more difficult…Kumaratunga still has four years to go. She is an energetic woman with passionate views on most areas of policy, and fighter’s approach to politics. As President, she is still commander in chief of the armed forces. Her convictions on the country’s ethnic problems and her economic policies differ mainly in nuance from those of the new prime minister, but their clashing personalities and political agendas will make it very difficult for them to work together.” - “Sri Lanka: “Cohabitation”-Opportunity or Paralysis”,

The writer continues, “A consensus is almost certainly out of reach, but a limited political nonaggression pact might work. This will come naturally neither to the two leaders nor to their party colleagues, the situation calls for unusually strong self-restraint by both leaders”. 

Cohabitation is what the people of Sri Lanka have voted for. The President and the Government were elected by the people in separate elections. This should be viewed optimistically said one political observer and noted, “Peace in Sri Lanka is not the sole prerogative of one political party. Politicians must be gracious enough to learn from each others’ experiences and mistakes”.

The two main Southern political parties who have always scuttled each others’ moves to make peace are now in office, as the Executive and the Legislature. It is the people who have decided they should co-exist; both parties have an opportunity to draw up a ‘general national consensus’, at least on main issues such as peacemaking.

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Last Updated Date: September 25, 2003 .