Editorial
The new normal after six weeks
While the relaxing, not lifting, of the quarantine curfew which ran for an extended period of six weeks was compelled by socio-economic rather than preventive imperatives, it is obvious that the country cannot let down its guard. Cognizance of this reality by the decision makers is demonstrated by the fact that the “lockdown,” as it was commonly called, has not been totally lifted. The night curfew continues to be in force from 10 pm to 4 am and inter-provincial travel is still not possible. Health guidelines widely disseminated include restrictions on eateries, restaurants, salons and various other social gatherings including weddings, funerals and parties. The whole country without exception will hope that we are gradually returning to normal and the gains of the past two months will not be frittered away as was the case with the disastrous New Year relaxation.
Those of us who left our homes during the weeks of the lockdown, for valid reasons or otherwise, are well aware that the now relaxed restrictions were not tightly enforced. Police did not stop vehicles on the roads and question occupants on where they were headed, except on very few occasions. While the pre-pandemic traffic gridlocks were not in evidence, there nevertheless were a large number of vehicles moving particularly on city streets. While many businesses were closed, several remained open. People must obviously eat and procure their essential supplies so that a total lockdown was neither practical nor possible. Certainly public transport, meaning buses and trains, were not running but it was possible for those not fortunate enough to own a vehicle, be it a car or a motorbike, to find without much difficulty a three-wheeler to get to wherever they needed to go. Most people did not go to work and that accounted for much of the reduced traffic and movement on the roads. But this is now going to change to probably somewhat less than the bad old days. We must wait and see what the availability of public transport will be under this new order and also how employers, whether private or government, will minimize work attendance or insist on workplace presence.
The latest published numbers do reveal a significant decrease in infections and fatalities. But all of us must be fully aware of how quickly this can change as it has both in this country and elsewhere. It is human nature to place the best construction on impending events and there will be the temptation to return at least to near normal. This is most likely to happen for selfish reasons regardless of both personal risk and that to the wider community. Clear breaches of social distancing rules were visible, for example, when liquor shops were permitted to open during the tail end of the so-called lock down; and even physical brawls were seen outside the ubiquitous wine stores. There is no escaping the fact that the cash-strapped government, battling sharp revenue downturns, needed the excise revenues that are a major contributor to state coffers. The decision to reopen liquor shops would have, we believe, been taken totally mindful of the dangers in order to achieve a fine balance. The fact that they were not closed again even in the context of what happened when they were reopened clearly tells its own story.
Of course restrictions, or the lack of them, have their own imperatives. All of us are only too well aware of the sorry state of public transport in this country even in the best of times. Buses and trains are badly congested particularly during peak hours and it will be a job and a half, to use a common colloquialism, to prevent overcrowding and enforce social distancing in them during the new normal effective from dawn on Friday. Although there have been assurances by private bus operators to observe health protocols, accompanied by demands for fare increases on grounds of being compelled to run half-empty buses, how long, if at all, will that last? Like almost all businesses and most ordinary people, bus owners too are feeling the pandemic crunch. So will the police go all out to strictly enforce the rules? Probably not, and if they do, will the bus owners react by withdrawing services? All these are matters that still remain to be seen.
A vitally necessary effort has been made and continues to get the tourism industry restarted to whatever extent present conditions permit. Perhaps this industry, along with self-employed daily paid workers eking out a hand-to-mouth existence, has suffered the most from the pandemic and its economic consequences. There are signs that tourists, particularly from the west, are keen on dodging the forthcoming winter and are tempted to take holidays in warmer climes. They are further enticed by attractive packages on offer. We need not belabor the fact that hundreds of thousands in this country, directly and indirectly, are dependent on tourism for their living. The economic cost to the country as a whole from the drying out of that vital source of foreign exchange is also huge. But how successful these efforts will be even in the context of travel restrictions being relaxed at home and abroad remains to be seen in the weeks ahead. The relaxation of the rules last Sinhala and Tamil New Year was, no doubt, at least partly influenced by the need to give the hotel industry at least the benefits of selling rooms to domestic tourists. But that boomeranged.
What is now necessary is the need for all of us to exercise commonsense in the new normal that dawned last week. We must all continue to wear our masks outside our homes, despite some discomfort, frequently wash our hands, refrain from unnecessary travel, observe social distancing and continue to take necessary precautions under current conditions. Remember at all times that you can be an asymptomatic covid carrier and behave accordingly.
Saturday 8th June, 2024
It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.
The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.
The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.
The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.
On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.
While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.
Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.
Friday 7th June, 2024
The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.
The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.
EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.
It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.
Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.
Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.
What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.
Thursday 6th June, 2024
The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.
Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.
Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.
Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.
Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.
Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.
The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.
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