Elections are here again
View(s):At a Colombo discussion this week, experts alluded to the fact that ‘disruptions’ in innovation or technology is a positive thing and Sri Lankans must be prepared to work with such ‘disruptions’.In today’s modern world, disruptive innovation means creating a product and a new market that disrupts the existing market but where the benefits definitely outweigh the disruptive nature of such events.
However a negative form of the modern-day disruption is, once again, taking place in Sri Lanka: Elections. For years, policy planners, civil society and the business community have suffered with on-off elections – be it local councils, parliament or the presidency and in most cases, where the schedules have been unpredictable.
Often polls are held ahead of schedule, not based on the people’s needs, but the popularity or lack of it by a regime. Such unpredictable scenarios hurt business the most, affecting long-term plans or even short term ones. Business planning gets thrown out of the window and this is the case in the past six months, too.
Business has been at a standstill in the post January 2015 period after former President Mahinda Rajapaksa began flexing his muscles and made his claim to return to power albeit through Parliament. Since then the political environment became murky and even threw off-gear the Maithri-Ranil steered coalition government, so much so that the scheduled April 23 dissolution of parliament was delayed and eventually announced on June 19, almost two months later. Like it or not Rajapaksa’s resurfacing has put the ruling regime off track. As stated by the President earlier this week, the ‘sudden’ dissolution was also aimed at preventing the opposition from debating a no confidence motion against the Prime Minister and attempts – if they were successful – to bring the former President into parliament and oust the government.
These ‘disruptions’ in the past few months led to dull and boring trades at the Colombo stock market which perked up after elections were announced, a signal that the market is expecting the ‘disruptive period’ to be over soon after the August 17 parliamentary poll. Investors, tired of the waiting game, say it doesn’t matter who captures power as long as long as the country starts moving again.
Over the past few months apart from a wait-and-see approach by the private sector, many high level public servants have delayed decision-making fearing that politically-motivated decisions by the new ministers could get them into trouble in this era of governance, transparency and accountability. On the other hand, ministers have complained that Rajapaksa-favoured administrators were deliberately delaying decisions stalling the progress of the United National Party (UNP)’s 100-day programme.
In the rush to implement all that was promised, panic buttons were pressed and mistakes crept in and the regime is suffering the consequences. A case in point is the controversial Treasury Bond issue which drew Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran into the limelight due to alleged ”favouritism’ to a firm linked to his son-in-law. Heated responses and shooting off-the-cuff responses (rather than measured ones) to accusations from opposition politicians and civil society added fuel to the fire, one example being the appointment of a committee of UNP lawyers and the follow-up thereafter. However much the lawyers said they would be independent and to some extent had been, question marks arose over their credibility and independence particularly under a government that spoke of transparency and good governance where conflict of interest should be furthest in the minds of the administrators.
Even high-ranking office bearers of a top Colombo chamber had expressed concern over the bond issue saying that the February 27 transaction post-events would have not been sustainable in any other democratic country.
“How can a governor have a relative trading in the market? In any other country he (governor) would have had to step down or he himself would have quit under public pressure,” one corporate leader said A veil of silence in the past few months over follow-up to the Weliamuna report on SriLankan Airlines has also disappointed many people.
However are these issues that confront the larger majority at an election?
Last week’s Business Times-Research Consultancy Bureau (BT-RCB) widely-participated opinion poll provides some clues to how the electorate would vote this time.
Questions were asked on the government’s performance on action against the corrupt, the economy, cost of living and the impact of Rajapaksa’s re-entry into the political arena.
Respondents from the street and from email were unanimous in their disappointment over the lack of sufficient action against corrupt persons but praised the government on its handling of the cost of living.
While agreeing that the Rajapaksa entry will be a major factor at the election, respondents were also strongly of the view that the Treasury Bond issue would not be a deciding factor at the election.
The results of this poll in which respondents included middle-working class people, professionals, students and businesspersons, is a lot of food for thought on how the vote could shape out in the regions.
While both sides (the UNP-led coalition and the UPFA) are gung-ho on the prospects of winning the poll, the ruling coalition clearly has the edge.
They could have ‘scored’ a few more points if an independent, caretaker administration was appointed under President Sirisena during the period of the poll, particularly in the new-found governance society that Sri Lankans have come to accept.
In the decisions made in cabinet in the next few weeks, accusations can be made -rightly or wrongly – that decision making is titled in favour of one party not considering however the decision to charge politicians for the use of state resources, which is a laudable move.