Sunday Times 2
Can Lanka produce a charismatic leader now?
View(s):Abraham Lincoln’s conclusion about fooling people ‘You can’t fool all the people all the time’ needs to be changed when Sri Lankan politics of the present day are looked at: A few people have fooled all the people and may go on for an indefinite period of time.
The people, in whom the sovereignty of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is vested, used the power of public opinion without resorting to violence, to make the government and the President they had elected to resign.
The outgoing president, before resigning, nominated as prime minister an unelected person who was later elected by MPs of a government that resigned, as the new president.
This president elected by the MPs had been defeated at the last parliamentary election, his party failing to win a single seat but he came in as a nominated MP based on the proportion of votes polled by his party.
Now the people who threw out the president and government whom they elected are put behind bars by the president elected by MPs of the defeated party. This new president reigns supreme, calling those who democratically threw out a corrupt lot that brought the country to bankruptcy terrorists.
Haven’t some people fooled all the people? And for how long can this go on?
There is intense debating on how this land, once called the Pearl of the Orient, could come out of the deep abyss it is now in. The consensus is ‘hold elections and let the people decide’. An election –presidential or parliamentary — can be held but can it pull us out of the deep dark hole we are in?
Are elections to be held while the status quo remains — the same election and constitutional laws, the same old leaders and the same institutions that go to make the electoral process, or will there be a radical departure?
There are constitutional amendments being proposed now but is there a possibility of them being accepted before elections are held, considering the prevailing belligerent locking of horns of political parties?
And a very important factor: what’s the kind of politicians that will emerge from elections? The same old scoundrels or those young activists now behind bars?
And the most important of all, the frame of mind of the electorate. Will they go on the same old party lines electing any person — rogue, potential rogue, or honest politician?
President Ranil Wickremesinghe has so far been successful in achieving the objectives expected of him: progress in negotiations with the IMF and developing good relations with Western nations and Japan that had been soured by the Rajapaksa regimes of brothers Mahinda and Gotabaya.
But has he come up against a great wall of China in the negotiations with the IMF in getting a commitment to a moratorium on repayments of its loans amounting to billions of dollars? China’s investments in Lanka have been basically with the objectives of its Belt and Road initiatives in strategically placed Sri Lanka. Western nations, Japan, Australia, and India comprise the Quad, the countervailing force in preventing China’s objectives. Thus, China would not like the Quad’s proxy in South Asia, India, walking across the Palk Strait into Lanka.
President Wickremesinghe has not disclosed how long he intends to continue in office but political observers speculate that he hopes to stay in until the life of the current parliament ends. The loyalty of the faction of the Rajapaksa party that voted him in as president, however, is with Basil Rajapaksa, who is alleged to be directing operations from the United States.
Meanwhile, indications are that the Rajapaksa family has not yet abandoned hope of regaining power. Last week, a report said that Gotabaya is testing the water to find out whether he should get into the political pool or not. Does he still retain the 52.25 percent of the vote he polled when elected, even after farmers and plantation workers in all agricultural sectors came out against him not forgetting workers in the construction and informal sectors now out of employment and have no sources of income? But his former supporters who simply cannot join the UNP, Sajith Premadasa’s SJB, the JVP, or the Aragalaya activists, will be with him.
Sajith Premadasa is the unsullied leader of the opposition but what are his policies to meet the new challenges? His father’s policies such as poverty alleviation and housing alone will not do. Perhaps he needs new youthful politicians to join him and a broader coalition but is he willing to do that?
The mindset of the Sinhala voter has changed from the earlier relaxed stance of Ohey innawa, Apey minihata danawa (We are not worried. We will vote for our man).
They have thrown out a government but there is no leader. Can Lanka produce a charismatic leader, old or new, that can lead a coalition of forces with similar objectives to a new horizon?
(The writer is a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and consultant editor of the Sunday Leader)