Columns

Sri Lankan politicians make such unimaginable and unattainable promises at election time that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once described it pithily. He called it the auction of nonexistent resources.

During a chat I had with him in Hong Kong when I was with “The Standard” newspaper, he made a similar remark but more out of pity for our country like no other than with any touch of condescension that marked his earlier description of our political legerdemain.

He spoke about the waste of state assets with little or no accountability and the absence of meritocracy in the selection of persons to high office and public administration. He said it was the strict adherence to these principles and policies and the austere approach in those early days that made Singapore what it was.

I was talking to him sometime in the mid-1990s, if I remember correctly, decades before Singapore turned to what it is today, certainly a more relaxed political and media culture than what it used to be when I was offered a job with a new broadsheet newspaper that was to be launched as a balance, if not competitor, in a sense, to the Straightjacket Straits Times.

It was not too long ago that some of our politicians were still talking of following the Lee Kuan Yew road to success and turning Sri Lanka into a Singapore with careful fiscal and monetary policies and commitment to stringent principles that permitted honest and dedicated governance.

But somehow our great masterminds forgot about Mr. Lee’s readiness to deal sternly with corruption, whether the corrupt were ministers or state officials. That rigorous anti-corruption policy still continues in that city-state, as recent events show.

Instead, what did our great political thinkers do? They brought down a Singaporean national who was of Sri Lankan origin and had studied in Colombo as governor of our Central Bank. His Colombo college, like many others, had a motto in Latin which some local wags converted into more apt lingo calling it “cram or scram”.

But the man who was to see us through difficult times and build fortunes for his country of origin got himself entangled in some unsavoury nepotistic dealings, ending in his departure from Sri Lanka, leaving behind a more appropriate motto, “scam and scram”.

Instead of learning lessons from such gory events, we notice another one who had some connection with these dealings and fell from the penthouse into the dog house, making a reappearance as though we have a thriving economy, and more people are sinking below the poverty line and more children are suffering from malnutrition.

There may not be queues, but there are no essential medicines in hospitals and huge queues outside the Immigration Department waiting for passports.

Yet what has been done all these years to end corruption and punish the guilty? Our ruling class proudly talks about the 100 or so laws passed in the last two years or more. What use have they served except appearing in our statute books?

Even that capitalist IMF that we appear to have become prey of and still pray to insists on cleaning up the stables of corruption and demand accountability. But could any of those bloated with importance tell the citizenry how many of those at the highest levels of governance have been brought to justice for doing precisely what Lee Kuan Yew warned us against?

The world knows that in the cabinet and among lower-order ministers and MPs there are those who have been convicted of criminal extortion and other crimes and others who some believe should be behind bars instead of claiming bar licences.

While the public waits like waiting for Godot—for the curtain to rise on some of those much-vaunted laws to be acted on—corruption continues unabated.

The high and mighty continue with their lavish lifestyles rather than grace the dock where they should rightly be, continuing with sugar, garlic, and other scams untouched by the forces of law.

Our leaders are intent on saying that building a strong economy is more important than giving precedence to clean and accountable governance. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who had ruled the country for 14 years, thought so too. See where it got her.

Maybe we have amongst our ruling class those who think so too and wish to follow Sheikh Hasina into political obscurity.  Now we are told that if Ranil Wickremesinghe loses the presidential race, there will be another election in two years. Well, that would allow him to take another shot at being a president elected by the people. He would be young enough for that, no?

While the more thoughtful citizenry might view that with some trepidation, the voting public might accept that with alacrity. In fact, an election every year could be even better.

See what our political Santa Claus has brought—not just the poor and the struggling but even those who sit in air-conditioned comfort, like a poor Houdini, doing little or nothing.

Surely a Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000 increase to the public sector, which the Treasury has confirmed is expected to cost an extra Rs 250 billion, is certainly not peanuts.

What should surprise the country’s 17 million voters is how a government that only a few weeks earlier refused trade union calls for a Rs 10,000 wage hike, saying it has no money, suddenly found the money for a wholesale salary increase and said it would feature in the 2025 budget.

If I remember correctly, there were other unions and groups, such as the non-academic employees of universities, that were denied salary hikes.

Surely the thoughtful must wonder whether Manna is dropping from the heavens, for the once bankrupt nation seems to have suddenly attained divine beneficence.

The country’s rulers, who only the other day did not seem to have funds to hold local government elections and so denied a fundamental right of the people and obstinately and haughtily refused to abide by a Supreme Court order that earned the guilty a deserving response, seemed to have developed a Midas touch with the approach of the elections.

Not long ago, those elevated to positions of power more by accident than design called on the people to tighten their belts—that is, those who had not already lost theirs and could not keep their trousers and sarongs in place—and were warned of more hard times ahead.

But suddenly there is money. Don’t tell me Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe is busy printing money between rather strange statements that make one wonder whether he is campaigning at this crucial election time.

For come elections and the coffers appear to be inexplicably overflowing with fiscal reserves, and those whose bellies had shrunk due to belt-tightening are now in a position to release them a notch or two.

Any way, this public sector salary hike was a neat move. Had Bertholt Brecht heard of such a dramatic act, he might have cut a few strands of the rope-bearing Grusha to make her crossing more exciting.

The Experts Committee was appointed in June this year with instructions to present the final report in three months. So, conveniently, at the beginning of this election month, it was in presidential hands in time for a last-minute vote-catching move.

But desperation is setting. So unpaid loans of farmers are to be wiped out; it was announced just the other day.

As though this last-minute move is not enough, suddenly SJB’s Rajitha Senaratne, who had been sidelined in recent times and had thankfully remained so, now surfaces, supporting Wickremesinghe and telling expat Sri Lankans whose remittances are welcomed, to keep away from voting at this month’s elections.

Could anybody tell me how many political parties dentist Senaratne has been in? I don’t know, and I suppose he does not either.

One can quite understand his clients opening their mouths. But to mouth inanities, that is intolerable.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)