Where are we headed?

Where the country is headed remains very much in the air as this is being written. The frightening fuel queues remain a fact of life although there was some respite after the QR code became effective from last week. The long lines have by no means evaporated and it is obvious to the simplest mind that whatever scheme is enforced – be it the last digit of the registration number for a small entitlement on specific days of the week or the newest method now in operation – the fuel must come in for the distribution to continue. And for that we must find the dollars to pay for the shipments as and when they come in. Therein lies the rub. Having run down our reserves to zero there is no sign of the bridging finance that was hoped for to tide over until an arrangement with the IMF is finalized hopefully sooner than later. However what is in force today is more equitable than what prevailed previously in that distribution is fairer.

The gas supply situation seems to be assured for the next couple of months. But gas, like fuel. also cannot be purchased for printed rupees. While the gas queues are now gone, when they will reappear is anybody’s guess. We have a new president and his maiden policy statement delivered last week was welcomed by many quarters. It was several decades ago that British economist Joan Robinson said that people in then Ceylon were used to eating the fruit before the tree was planted. The president used a similar idiom talking about his 25-year plan saying he wouldn’t be around when the tree he is planting begins to bear. Whether Mr. Wickremesinghe, now 73-years old, plans to seek a new term after serving out the balance tenure of the former president is not clear. In any case that’s all pie in the sky. He’s first got to make almost instant delivery on many fronts and external factors control that ability. His policy statement suggested confidence but whether this is misplaced or not remains to be seen.

Obviously an all party government, which the former president also sought to form, is still proving elusive although some support appears to have been won. GR eventually ended up with a new prime minister from the zero-scoring UNP replacing his discredited brother before fleeing the country and installing Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting president. That the UNP did not win a single seat at the last parliamentary election and gained its solitary representation via the National List on the basis of its all- island poll did not really mean that the greens were totally wiped out. What the election result demonstrated was that Sajith Premadasa with his new Samagi Jana Balavegaya polled those votes that would otherwise have gone to the UNP if the party remained intact. The majority of the UNP’s previous MPs preferred Sajith’s leadership to Ranil’s. While Wickremesinghe conceded the losing presidential election slot to Premadasa in 2019, he clung on to the party leadership and that resulted in the break-up leading to disaster.

The new president right now is busy trying to secure as much support as he can from parties already represented in parliament for a broad based government. National Freedom Front leader Wimal Weerawansa, never a friend of Wickremesinghe or the UNP, last week voted for the State of Emergency saying that the near anarchy that prevailed in recent weeks cannot be allowed to continue. He is most probably wide open for a ministry in the Wickremesinghe government. Many others too are knocking at the door and the numbers game will ensure that some of them will be admitted. This has for too long been the state of play in this so-called Democratic Socialist Republic. The present administration is clearly going to abjectly fail in ensuring that the new government will be confined to a competent cabinet of around a dozen ministers. It is not even likely that the best available talent in the incumbent parliament, leave alone expertise from outside, is going to be drawn into the effort to get the country out of the present mess. The promised executive committee system, giving a role to all MPs in the business of running the government, is poor compensation.

It is said that politics is the art of the possible. Given the scramble for political plums it has proved impossible during the past many decades to confine the cabinet to a reasonable number. The political will to so is sadly lacking. Already a convict carrying a suspended sentence for extortion is in the cabinet. A minister asked by GR to step down following a bribery solicitation complaint has been reappointed following lightening swift clearance by a government appointed committee. There is no public confidence in such whitewashes. The people have no confidence whatever in lukewarm prosecutions that have resulted in a spate of acquittals. While promises of stamping out corruption are a dime a dozen delivery has been totally lacking.