Perilous choices

Thursday 4th April, 2024

Sri Lanka is never short of issues. Parliament is currently preoccupied with media reports that a Colombo-bound ship which brought down a bridge in Baltimore, the other day, was carrying a toxic cargo. The MPs have been waxing eloquent on hazmat and the Basel Convention for the past few days, but most of them including ministers billed to speak, on Tuesday, were not present in the House when the Banking (Amendment) Bill and regulations under the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Act were taken up for debate. They claim to be aware of what the aforesaid ship stranded thousands of kilometres away has onboard, but they did not know the time when an important parliamentary debate would commence! On the political front, the SJB says its leader Sajith Premadasa has accepted his JVP counterpart, Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s challenge to a debate on the economy. The SLPP and the UNP, quarrelling over which election should be held first—presidential or parliamentary—are reportedly negotiating a compromise formula, which is to hold them on the same day.

What are the leaders of the SJB and the JVP-led NPP going to debate? They refused to accept the challenge of helping straighten up the economy when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa sought their help albeit for want of a better alternative. Since they missed that opportunity, they have been speaking ad nauseam about the economy and offering solutions, and therefore it is doubtful whether they will have anything new to say in a debate. Their economic programmes, as outlined in their platform oratory, are characterised by welfarism, populism and idealism although the need is for a pragmatic approach to rebuilding the economy. They promise to lower taxes, curtail waste, eliminate corruption, grant relief to the public, and boost foreign exchange reserves. The IMF programme they have pledged to continue with, in case of winning future elections, does not permit tax cuts or politically-motivated handouts; in fact, a property tax will have to be introduced next year. What do they propose to do with that tax? Transparency is the most effective antidote to corruption. The SJB leader would have us believe that he is living for giving handouts to others, and the NPP leaders say they are living on handouts given by others! Will the SJB and the NPP reveal the amounts of funds they have received over the years and name their donors?

Sri Lanka is full of backseat drivers who claim to know the way but cannot drive. While it was in the Opposition, the UNP bragged that its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would be able to bring in billions of dollars almost overnight if he was given the reins of government. But he, as the President, is begging for dollars from the IMF. However, he has managed to steer the battered ship of Lanka in such a way that his supporters can claim that he is in the same league as the ‘river bar pilots’, in a manner of speaking. It is a singular feat that should not go unappreciated. Wickremesinghe also prevented Parliament from falling into the hands of violent protesters in July 2022, and brought order out of chaos.

Skipper Wickremesinghe’s problem is that his own vessel is carrying a cargo of political hazmat, as it were; his party is full of unsavoury elements who made the UNP-led Yahapalana government (2015-2019) a metaphor for corruption and ineptitude, and caused the UNP’s ignominious defeat at the 2020 general election. He has been able to shore up his image to a considerable extent thanks to his unwavering political leadership for the ongoing not-so-popular yet essential economic recovery measures, which have yielded some tangible results, but the public thinks that if he is elected, all the undesirables in his party will ride on his coattails in a bid to re-enter Parliament and make up for lost time. He will have to get rid of this toxic political cargo if he is to regain enough popular support to win the next presidential election.

Sri Lankans have apparently been left with a choice between a seasoned skipper, whose vessel is carrying political hazmat, and some inexperienced navigators, who might ram the ship of government into the bridge of national economy slap-bang, if placed at the helm thereof, the way Gotabaya Rajapaksa did.