Polls phobia

Saturday 18th December, 2021

Unpopular regimes do not fear anything more than elections. The yahapalana government was so scared of elections that it amended the Provincial Council (PC) Elections Act in the most despicable manner in 2017 to put off PC polls, which it knew would threaten the uneasy truce between the UNP and the SLFP. But it could not postpone the Local Government (LG) elections, and suffered a crushing defeat in April 2018, when the SLPP’s winning streak began. The incumbent dispensation is also troubled by what may be called polls phobia despite its rhetoric. It is planning to postpone the LG polls by one year. A Cabinet paper to that effect has already been presented, according to media reports.

The government has given Covid-19 as the reason for its decision to postpone the LG polls, but the truth is otherwise. It seems to have wised up to the fact that its luck is running out fast. Usually, those who are backed by the ruling party, at cooperative or samupakara elections, perform extremely well, and their poor performance is considered a harbinger of doom for the government. These contests at the grassroots thus serve as a political windsock although they often go unreported.

The SLPP certainly cannot be happy with the outcome of the recent cooperative elections. It has failed to retain control over most of the cooperative societies to which elections have been held so far. This must have prompted it to postpone the LG polls perhaps with a view to shoring up its crumbling support base before facing them. Whether the SLPP will be able to do so is doubtful, given its plummeting popularity, and its leaders’ callous disregard for the suffering of the people.

Most SLPP leaders do precious little to ameliorate the woes of the public, and have betrayed their gross inefficiency and ineptitude in managing the economy. Their cavalier attitude and arrogance of power are bound to be the undoing of the government. They are apparently labouring under the delusion that the people will have to vote for them again for want of a better alternative; they seem to think the Opposition is weak and incompetent and therefore cannot offer itself as an alternative to the present regime. To add insult to injury, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has given the public some gratuitous advice; he has asked them to look for an alternative to both the SLPP and the Opposition if they are not happy with the performance of his government. What the people who elected him expected of him was not such unsolicited advice but strong leadership and a Herculean effort on his part to hoist the country from the politico-economic mire it has found itself in for decades.

The government does not look serious about recovering lost ground. At a time when it has to pull out all the stops to save the economy, which is on the verge of collapse, its leaders are leaving the country. No sooner had Budget 2022 been passed than Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa went to the US, leaving the task of running the Finance Ministry to Foreign Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris, who has enough and more problems on the diplomatic front to contend with. It is now double trouble for the latter.

The country is faced with the worst-ever economic crisis, and the Finance Minister should be here, making a serious attempt to tackle it. Several other ministers are also holidaying overseas if media reports are anything to go by. (It may be argued that the President should not be bracketed with them because he is said to have gone abroad for a medical check-up, but it needs to asked why the ‘patriotic’ Sri Lankan leaders who claim to have worked themselves into the ground to usher in national progress do not consider the healthcare system here good enough for them and their kith and kin.)

It is only wishful thinking that the government grandees who are having a whale of a time overseas without caring a tinker’s cuss about the burning issues their electors are facing at home will be able to avoid an electoral setback by postponing the LG polls. What they are doing, in their wisdom, is like a person afflicted with diarrhoea postponing a trip to the washroom.