Sri Lanka: Surviving the bloodletting

The people are very well aware that shenanigans of massive proportions, both financial and otherwise, abounded during the previous regime.

by Manik de Silva -Jan 28, 2018

( January 28, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) With less than a fortnight to go before countrywide local elections, it is patently clear that the gloves are off between constituents of the incumbent yahapalana government who have now become combatants. The question on how long the present arrangement between the UNP and President Maithripala Sirisena’s faction of the SLFP can last is now wide open. Undoubtedly the election result will be a determinant, some would say the determinant, of how future events would unravel. The president publicly threw out a challenge last week to debate the bond commission report before the polls are held on February 10. Obviously that arrow was aimed at the UNP. He followed this up on Friday when he met editors and heads of media institutions saying that apart from the so-called bond scam, there has been large scale diversion of government funds to private business interests. Though unstated, it is clear that that there too the barb was directed at the Ravi Karunanayake headed finance ministry.

Former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal took instant umbrage over the president’s statement that trillions of rupees of foreign loans taken by the previous regime is unaccounted for. He said this claim is “ridiculous” and “untrue” and may even “border on lunacy.” Exclaiming that the 2014 GDP was Rs. 10.2 trillion, he made the point that the president’s figure of unaccounted funds amounted to 90 percent of that. It seems to us that the president was not referring to a single year’s borrowing but to total borrowing during the 10-year tenure of the previous administration. But we would take Cabraal’s caution about the dangers of throwing numbers like these around very seriously. Foreign lenders, whether they are multilateral institutions or bond market investors, can become most disturbed when no less than a president of a country makes such allegations. Hopefully the figures were checked and double checked before they were made public. The same caution the president requires before arresting high profile personalities of the previous regime, like Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, that there is watertight evidence against them would be commendable in these matters too.

The people are very well aware that shenanigans of massive proportions, both financial and otherwise, abounded during the previous regime. They voted this government in to end all that and bring the perpetrators to book. The ongoing process in this regard is painfully slow and what is worse that the present rulers are not without cronies to whom patronage is extended to play the same games or worse with gay abandon. The former president wants the February 10 election to be a referendum on the present government. If he demonstrates more support than the current incumbents, who are no longer presenting the common front that enabled the regime change in January 2015, he would no doubt proceed from then onwards on the basis that the mandates of 2015, both presidential and parliamentary, are no longer valid. From the perspective of the ruling side, how the UNP and the Sirisena faction of the SLFP fare vis-à-vis Rajapaksa’s Joint Opposition will be indicative up to a point of their standing in the electorate. Certainly the UNP as the country’s biggest political party will be at an advantage in this regard despite the flak it is taking even from the president. But often people vote at local elections, particularly in the rural countryside, for candidates rather than parties. The picture may be different in big Municipalities like Colombo, Kandy and Galle. In any case, do you add up the councils that the president and the UNP take on the basis that they are together in government – for however long that may be – and compare the result with the JO tally?

The president’s meeting with the media did not reveal whether he plans to seek another term. However short our collective memory is reputed top be, the people have not forgotten the solemn statement that he made at Independence Square that he will not run again for president. When this subject was broached on Friday, there was no clear answer with the president saying he tackles issues of the day rather than those of the future. Yesterday’s The Island editorially said the question may have been phrased better leaving less room for evasion, if he was asked whether the solemn pledge he made immediately after his swearing in January 2015 was still valid. The answer to that question still remains wide open though the president did make clear that he is very much a political animal and will remain active in politics, whether in or out of office, during his lifetime.

Local elections necessarily are less exciting and raise less dust than national hustings be they presidential or parliamentary. Voter turnouts are also smaller. While there is a degree of visible interest (though thank God no polythene) on how Colombo particularly will vote reflected in the media, less is known how things are going in the rural hinterland. Are the people fired-up by the fact that they have got an opportunity, however delayed, of choosing their representatives to run their local bodies? A colourful parliamentarian of yesteryear coined a slogan ooth balla, mooth balla, apita hondai gamey balla at an early post-Independence parliamentary election where two candidates with naughty reputations were running against each other. That description no doubt fits the contending parties this time around. We don’t have long to wait to see how events unfold a fortnight hence. But the question bigger than that is ‘whither the yahapalanaya government?’ Can its constituents wounding each other in the ongoing campaign survive the blood letting?

( The writer is the chief editor of the Sunday Island, a Colombo based weekly newspaper where this piece first appeared)