Political Commentary

Sri Lanka has so far been spared the riots and political instability that has rocked other countries facing debt repayment crises. Kenya and now Bangladesh have seen large scale rioting and popular uprisings that are directly the consequence of economic problems that have sharpened the pain felt by the masses of people. Sri Lanka too was in a similar situation at the time President Ranil Wickremesinghe took over the reins of government. The president’s handling of the security situation and economy, and the support he has obtained from the IMF to regain access to international loans, has won him plaudits from the international community. Ironically, the majority of Sri Lankan people, though patient and quiet, may be having a different view which may explain the president’s apparent reluctance to test his popularity at the presidential election.

Inspector General of Police Deshabandu Tennakoon finds himself at the centre of a controversy that goes to the heart of Sri Lanka’s democracy. The Supreme Court has directed that he should be restrained from acting in the position of head of police until the court has fully considered all the petitions submitted against his appointment. Much to the consternation of law abiding people the government has announced its decision not to act on the Supreme Court interim order restraining Deshabandu Tennakoon from functioning as the Inspector General of Police. Despite the ruling by the highest court in the land, the government insists that the Police IGP will continue to hold office which is not acceptable in a law governed society. The threat to democracy cannot be underestimated.

The issue of the proposed 22nd Amendment to the constitution which cast doubt about the holding of the presidential election in view of its requirement of a referendum and focus on the length of the president’s term of office has hopefully been dealt with. In his recent speech while opening the judicial complex in Galle, President Ranil Wickremesinghe went out of his way to assure his distinguished audience including judges of the Supreme Court of his commitment to democratic norms. He demonstrated his responsiveness to the concerns that have arisen from the 22nd Amendment which his own Minister of Justice Wijayadasa Rajapakshe sought to shelve until after the presidential election is held due to the concerns it had generated.

The question mark that hangs over the presidential election due in October this year is not going away. The answer to it keeps getting put off. The latest is the government’s proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate ambiguity in the term of the president from six to five years. The Supreme Court has thrice affirmed the legitimacy of the 19th Amendment which reduced the term of the presidency. Academic scholars such as Dr Nihal Jayawickrama have raised the quetion why nine years later, without any issue having been raised by the Supreme Court or by any other court or tribunal, or in parliament, or in any other forum, the government proposes to amend the constitution for the sole purpose of replacing the words “six years” with the words “five years”.

The deadline for presidential elections is fast approaching and the Election Commissioner will be empowered to declare the date of the election on July 17, just over a week from now. The election rallies are becoming larger and feistier. The two main opposition parties are showing their growing strength in the numbers attending their political rallies. The government too is unifying to meet the challenge. The most recent public meeting brought together the leading members of the ruling SLPP who have been thought to be at loggerheads. Many have resurfaced into the public domain, which they lost when the economy collapsed and they had to go into hiding.

With less than a month before presidential elections are called, President Ranil Wickremesinghe has highlighted the success of his presidency as rescuing Sri Lanka from its international bankruptcy status that prevents it from doing business with the rest of the world. The signing of the agreement on international debt restructuring for USD 5.8 billion with the Official Creditor Committee consisting of several foreign governments that have given bilateral loans to Sri Lanka was celebrated in numerous ways. The president himself made a speech to the nation and firework exhibitions took place in various towns to mark the occasion. The president made it clear that he was the architect of Sri Lanka’s economic recovery. This puts upon him a greater responsibility to engage with the people, listen to them and explain to them what it all means.

With elections and a change of government in one way or the other imminent, the independent institutions of state vested with authority to monitor, and provide a check and balance to government, are vindicating their existence. The reports of the Auditor General over the years has been a testament to the diligence with which public officials empowered with a mandate pursue their tasks and find out the misuse of resources that has taken place. One of its reports is on a petroleum scam that has gone on for years and has come up before the Committee on Public Enterprises in parliament. The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) has refused approval to award procurement of the 484 MW wind power plant in Mannar and Pooneryn to Adani Green Energy SL Ltd. (AGESL), saying the information submitted to it by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) was not adequate to assess least cost and technical compatibility.

The demand for “system change” that was a key slogan of the Aragalaya protest movement two years ago is necessarily multi-faceted. It consists of a wide array of subjects including bringing back stolen assets, punishment for the perpetrators and putting an end to corruption. The present reality is still distant from this vision of a new social order that the protest movement had, and continues to have. No stolen assets are yet recovered either locally or internationally, though the government is formulating a new Proceeds of Crime law. Those whose property was set on fire in the last stages of the Aragalaya, before President Ranil Wickremesinghe was able to clamp down on that, are still claiming compensation. Government officials to whom they make their claims confide that the claims made by them are much more than what was lost. So the old order continues to prevail.

The petrol and gas queues are gone, but economic statistics paint a grim picture. The country’s international debt continues to mount inexorably as it did before the economic crash. Two years ago when the economic crisis hit, it was in the region of USD 80 billion. According to news reports, Sri Lanka’s debt has now increased to over USD 100 billion amid marginal improvement in some macroeconomic measures (such as inflation), while unpaid principal and interest on selected debt exceed USD 6.4 billion. This bodes ill for the country. It shows that little that is fundamental has changed in these past two years. The country, and government, continue to spend more than they earn and can only make ends meet by borrowing from abroad.

Government leaders appear to be considering all options for remaining in office beyond the constitutionally mandated periods of five years for the presidency and parliament. UNP General Secretary Palitha Range Bandara has announced that the government is considering postponing both the presidential and general elections for two years. There has been a considerable amount of speculation about a possible postponement of elections. In fact, this has been a part of the political discussion for over a year. The justification given for the effective freezing of politics until economic revival is assured is the need to consolidate the gains of economic recovery and prevent reversal. The assumption underlying this argument is that the present government is best suited for the job and their track record bears this out.

The 15th anniversary of the end of the war has made it clear that the war may have ended but the problems related to it have not. Outside of the north and east, the site of military action, there is a sense of normalcy with the war being a receding memory. This has given rise to the belief that the government could give its priority attention to other problems afflicting the country, most notably the economic collapse which continues to be a baleful presence in the lives of the great majority of people. There was also the hope that under the leadership of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, and his relationships with the leaders of Western countries, that the international pressures from human rights groups and the UN Human Rights Council could be overcome.

On numerous occasions President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said he was elected president to get Sri Lanka out of its economic morass and will do his utmost to fulfill that obligation. This has led to much speculation regarding the president’s intentions with regard to conducting presidential elections prior to achieving economic success. The truth of the president’s utterances with regard to his commitment to resolving the economic crisis is to be plainly seen in his determination to push ahead with unpopular economic policies. He has been unrelenting in sticking to higher tax rates than the masses of people can afford and to the privatization of state owned enterprises. Both of these policies are unpopular to the point of jeopardising his bid to be re-elected at the forthcoming presidential election, but the president has stuck by his convictions.

Elections provide a unique situation where people become equal regardless of their class or ethnic and religious identity. This offers space to rival politicians to address their unmet needs. The government has commenced several development initiatives that will take resources to the community level in a targeted manner. These initiatives would be beneficial to the government in mustering support for it at the grassroots level. Those who wield governmental power have the ability to make tangible offerings to the people to secure their vote in a time of elections. The intervention of the Election Commission and civil society organisations in disapproving some of these governmental actions and ensuring free and fair elections needs to be seen in this light.

The visit of Japan’s foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa to Sri Lanka is an indication that the relationship between the two countries is on the mend. The manner in which Japan was ousted from the special status it had once held by the previous government headed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would have caused much heartburn. Japan was, for several decades, Sri Lanka’s biggest economic benefactor providing both outright grants and subsidized loans for a range of infrastructure and economic development projects. The cancellation of the light rail transit project, which Japan had offered on very concessional terms, was an example of both political churlishness and economic foolhardiness for which Sri Lankans have had to pay a very heavy price.

In March 2020, the Sri Lankan government believed that the massive mandate President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had received gave it a licence to get out of the cycle of UN Human Rights Council resolutions by unilaterally opting out of the process. It announced that it would no longer consider itself bound to implement the resolution in force at that time. It stated its position was “backed by a people’s mandate and is in the interest of Sri Lanka and its people, instead of opting to continue with a framework driven externally that has failed to deliver genuine reconciliation for over four and half years.” However, the government also sought to keep itself within the framework of the UN system. The government stated that within a new framework of national reconciliation it was proposing it would continue to welcome the visits, advice and technical support from the UN system.

On April 21, the country passed the fifth year anniversary of the Easter Sunday bombing that took the lives of about 300 persons and injured and maimed many more. The bombers targeted Catholic and Christian churches that were filled with devotees at the time of the attacks. The bombers had emerged out of the blue as it were, there were questions whether Sri Lanka had become a site of a global battle and uncertainty that others might strike again. For two months, the capital city of Colombo almost shut down as people lived in fear. The bombing also changed the course of national politics and paved the way for those whose promise was the guarantee of national security and the rightful place of the ethnic and religious majority but who abused power and engaged in looting to the point that they collapsed the national economy.