Editorial

Political parties represented in Parliament met with the Elections Commission (EC) this week to discuss the feasibility of holding elections. It is understandable that the Opposition parties think it is in their favour to call for early elections given the public wrath towards the ruling coalition with the formal argument being trotted out for early elections being that this Parliament is no longer representative of the people.

At the same time, there is some realisation that this is not the time to hold an election, especially with the fuel shortage. The EC has long argued that it does not even have the money to hold an election, a dangerous argument, however true it may be.

Last week, this newspaper published details of the Kenyan elections on Tuesday (9th) where elections for the Presidency, Parliament, County Governors, and County Councillors are held on the same day. This is in complete contrast to Sri Lanka which spends billions on each election, i.e. four elections to elect a President, MPs, Provincial Councillors and Local Government Councillors – and then calls for early elections midway through their term saying those elected have lost their mandate.

There are several positive features from Kenya and many other African countries; for instance, having a fixed date for elections (the second Tuesday of August every five years) and stipulating minimum educational qualifications for candidates for each post; the higher the office, the higher the qualification required.

Notwithstanding election-related violence, accusations of rigging etc., it seems these African countries have taken giant strides ahead of older democracies like Sri Lanka which have been slow to adapt to the demands of a discerning electorate and unable to adopt electoral reforms for the modern age. The Dinesh Gunawardene Committee on Electoral Reforms needs to look into these matters as well.

The Opposition is seeking assurances that the Government at least hold the Provincial Council elections scheduled for next March. They want a moral electoral triumph to propel them to victory at a Parliamentary or Presidential election.

This is nothing but parochial politics and has nothing to do with whether Provincial Councils continue to be a viable form of decentralised administration in the country. All these Councils have continued for more than three years to-date without elected members and no complaints from the public. Regularly called ‘white elephants’, they serve neither man nor beast merely duplicating administration in the periphery, wasting public funds on corrupt councillors, maintaining fleets of vehicles burning fuel and paying for bloated staff at secretariats.

Without holding elections, the greater need is to ascertain whether Provincial Councils should be replaced by smaller units, maybe at District level and combined with the local government system to provide a leaner, more efficient mechanism of devolved power that helps the people, not the politicians or the political parties.

Yuan Wang visit: Lanka in a ‘trilemma’

China did Sri Lanka no favours by refusing to change course diplomatically or navigationally of its ‘research vessel’, Yuan Wang 5, to dock at the Hambantota Port. Sri Lanka found itself sandwiched between two regional powers and a superpower miles away over the visit, and this is only the beginning of what’s to come in the months and years ahead as the Indian Ocean becomes anything but a Zone of Peace.

Giving the Hambantota Port on a platter to the Chinese builder was bad enough, Sri Lankan leaders are going to face these headaches time and time again. Surely, the Foreign Ministry should have raised red flags in July before it gave approval for the vessel to dock. Were they unaware of India’s immediate concerns, especially after lessons were learned from allowing Chinese submarines to enter in 2014? Were papers dumped on President Gotabaya rajapaksa’s desk for his signature, like in the case of President Maithripala Sirisena and the US-SOFA draft?

The local Communist Party, once anti-China now its mouthpiece, argues that if Sri Lanka allows warships from the United States, etc., to dock, why not a Chinese ship. The question here is the timing, given India’s testing of its small satellite launch vehicles coinciding with its 75th anniversary of Independence (August 15) and whether Sri Lanka took into consideration India’s sensitivities.

This was not a matter of a regular clearance at the behest of Beijing or the Defence Ministry in Colombo. Certain conditions were stamped on the permit to dock, but how Sri Lanka was going to inspect whether the conditions are honoured is another matter.

Whatever happened to ‘preventive diplomacy’ and transparency with both countries knowing very well that Sri Lanka nowadays is subjected to an element of bullying by the big powers and cannot pursue its Non-Aligned policy aggressively as the economic crisis has completely enfeebled the country and its diplomatic clout.

When the Foreign Minister commends his immediate predecessor’s leadership, Sri Lanka better watch out if that is his yardstick of success. The Foreign Ministry under that leadership dropped a live diplomatic grenade for this Government to defuse. All that was left to be done was to plead for mercy from not two but three contending powers in the backdrop of the gathering storm over tensions in the Taiwan Straits and deep suspicions between the US and China.

Sri Lanka is going to continue to be buffeted by this rivalry due to its location. It cannot be turned into another Ukraine where a proxy war is raging. On the other hand, it cannot afford any blowback to our economic bailout plans with the IMF where support for debt structuring by all countries is crucial.

This ship visit turned into a high voltage big power prestige battle. The Government had to eventually accede to the Chinese on seemingly justifiable grounds that neither the US nor India could give cogent objections to the ship’s visit. Future visits by foreign warships to Sri Lanka’s ports of call are going to raise fierce disagreements all the time, and unless a less cavalier approach is taken by those in charge of foreign policy to avoid getting into diplomatic knots, Sri Lanka is going to end up creating two unfriendly regional powers (by trying to please one).

Pleasing the ‘trilemma’, US, India and China, is going to be a case of sharing ‘balanced unhappiness’ of the contenders as military muscle-flexing in the region is only likely to get more intense and contentious in time to come.