Down the pallang with no end in sight

It was a tragedy for this country that Venerable Madulwawe Sobitha Thera, who founded and led the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), died prematurely. Had he lived, the Sirisena – Wickremesinghe government he helped install in 2015 may not have come to its ignoble end five years later. He was the lynch-pin of the force that was able to marshal a common opposition to take on, and stunningly topple, the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime which through its infamous 18^th Amendment to the Constitution abolished the two-term limit on the presidency. Rajapaksa fatally sought a third term for himself, but the end of his presidency and subsequently his government, did not drive him into the political wilderness as it would have most mortals. He lived to fight another day, making those who ousted him eat more than humble pie by first installing his bother, Gotabaya, as the country’s sixth president, and then reducing the once proud UNP to zero in Parliament.

That is contemporary history that our readers are all too familiar with. We all well know too many of our past presidents falsely pledged to abolish the executive presidency created by President J.R. Jayewardene, who too hankered for a third term after decreeing a two term limit, but thought better as two insurrections in the north and south, wracked our island home. Sri Lanka survived those insurgencies with the JVP now in the political mainstream and the LTTE not quite dead, with a diaspora seeking to keep its ambitions alive active in many western countries where votes are bartered for influence. Some of its cult followers are still among us here in Sri Lanka. Former President Maithripala Sirisena, who pledged at Ven. Sobitha’s bier to abolish the executive presidency, though reduced today to a mere Member of Parliament, continues to maintain a low profile presence in national politics. His UNP bete noire, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who helped crown him as president and then sought to strip him of power, clings to the leadership of his party which up to now has been unable to even fill the solitary National List seat in Parliament it secured at the last election.

If Ven. Sobitha had lived, it would have been difficult for the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government to welsh on its promise of abolishing the executive presidency. The moral force of his authority would also surely have prevented the many omissions and commissions of the yahapalana government which was anything but that. But all that was not to be and the country today is at the brink of an abyss with the rupee devalued to 200 per U.S. dollar for the first time in its history, and its national debt estimated to run at over 98% of its GDP. Even though the country’s per capita income has increased steadily over the last two decades, revenue collection has been well below government expenditure, and has not been adequate even to cover recurrent expenditure of the state. Added to this dismal fiscal picture are the everyday travails of ordinary people struggling to make ends meet in the face of an ever-rising cost of living with no relief in sight. Covid has aggravated our predicament and where we go from here is anybody’s guess.

It is in this context that the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) that Ven. Sobitha founded and led is seeking to soberly present to the people the very real dangers confronting the country. Led by respected elder statesman Karu Jayasuriya, the organization is seeking to push the rulers into a correction course through its various activities. It seeks to project an apolitical stance and denies subversive interests. We have published in this newspaper, as we do today, much of what NMSJ and its leader is saying but whether or not such utterances resonate in places where it matters is hard to say. The 20^th Amendment that abolished the 19^th has thrown the baby with the bathwater. None can claim that the ousted leaders and members of yahapalana or their successors were paragons of virtue. The people know too well that succeeding political establishments this country has seen in the 73 years post-Independence has each been worse than its predecessor. The government that has presented some new math on the result of the recent vote at the UNHRC in Geneva continues to muddle along endangering both national security and the national economy.

Not a day passes without one blunder being followed by another. We had the bond scam under the previous dispensation. This one did better with the sugar scam followed by the coconut oil scam. There was no loss but only “foregone revenue” was the feeble defence on offer. This from the keeper of the public purse charged with the responsibility of balancing budgets where revenue monotonously falls short of expenditure. The last lot says that the sugar scam cost the country more than the bond scam; whether the reference was to the first or the second fiddle at the Central Bank or both together, the people don’t know. Environmental degradation continues unabated and the problem has assumed frightening proportions. A minister from the ruling family outrageously declares that two reservoirs will be built in the Sinharaja reserve to provide water for their pocket borough. He promises to plant 150 acres elsewhere to compensate saying that rubber will be planted to give people an income. We have not not had any word that this madcap project has been abandoned if it was ever seriously considered.

The predicament of the people will surely get worse before it gets better – if at all. We have to keep on voting in scoundrels despite their sorry performances and sordid track records for want of alternatives.

NMSJ criticism is offered non-abrasively. Let the issues raised be viewed in a similar spirit and properly addressed.