Economic policies as clear as mud
As the presidential election campaign gains momentum the economic policies of the two candidates are becoming confusing.

Their real economic policies are not spelled out in detail nor clearly articulated. They are probably of the view that they should be ambiguous and pleasing to various shades of opinion rather than clear and definite. Consequently the more intelligent sections of the electorate remain confused. Labels such as open market, Liberal, neo-liberal, National, socialist and market friendly, and other epithets are being used day after day. The number of spokesmen and frequent debunking of opponent’s economic policies in an equally confusing manner, hardly helps in getting a clearer idea on economic policies. Many of the economic policy stances are based on ideological and idealistic positions that are quite impractical.

One of the few specific measures of the coalition led by the SLFP was the decision not to privatise important state enterprises. This policy too could be interpreted in various ways. What is meant by important? Would other enterprises be privatised? If pressed for an answer no doubt the response would be that no public enterprise would be privatised, as this is a popular stance. In any event a coalition of dissimilar party positions inevitably leads to confused and contradictory policies and these contradictions surface once they gain power. The coalition candidate has asked Ranil Wickremesinghe what public enterprises would be privatised.

This is a fair question that merits a clear reply. Equally Mahinda Rajapakse should make it clear whether they intend to privatise any state enterprise at all. After all the SLFP led governments have privatised as much as any other and Mangala Samaraweera who is vociferous in his condemnation of privatisation of state enterprises spearheaded the privatisation of Telecom and it has probably been a great boom to ordinary people.

Talking about ushering in a Parakramabahu era has made policies even less clear. It was probably meant to merely convey the vision and dream of a Utopian era. It does not obviously mean the return to a feudal economic order.

When leaders are faced with embarrassing questions their responses could make the policy stances even more confusing. A national economy that produces everything in the country is not supposed to be one without international trade. Socialist policies are expected to be mixed with an important role for the private sector. The policies and their emphasis appear to vary with audiences addressed. But in a country with so many print and electronic media viewed daily by the public, there is no possibility of compartmentalising readers, listeners and viewers. Distortions by biased media only confound the confusion.

A noticeable trend is for leaders to qualify their announced policy stances to give the impression of balance in their policies. Any concept of balance however is capable of differing interpretations with differing emphasis on the respective policies leading to both controversy and uncertainty, whereby the concept of balance may provide little guidance to what the economic policies would be.

How should the electorate decide in such a state of confusion on economic policies?

The electorate has the advantage that both candidates at the elections have been Prime Ministers in recent years. Therefore the safest guide to their economic policies is not their pronouncements but how they performed when in power. The actual economic policies of the new President are not likely to be very different from what they subscribed to when they were in power.

Maybe the new elements of the coalition would have some influence but these could be little. There is a good reason for this. Economic policies to be pursued cannot ignore either the international context or the financial rigidities within which the policies have to be framed.

In fact both these factors may determine policies far more than the election pronouncements, agreements and promises we would hear at election time. It is this that makes the stock market perform in this context of confusion.

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