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Once the “Hallelujah’ cries of the adoring faithful of the National People’s Power (NPP) party in bestowing the long detested executive crown on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) subside, it is time to take sober stock of what lies before Sri Lanka.

The first few days of the AKD Presidency

This is the country’s spin on the United States’ legendary ‘from a log cabin to the White House’ story of one of its most revered Presidents, Abraham Lincoln. The humble beginnings of the new President or ‘AKD’ as he is known, from a wattle and daub hut to Marxist revolu-tionary (in the eighties) and then finally to sitting on the highest executive seat in the land has excited adulatory praise. Normally skeptical minds wax eloquent on the dawning of the true revolution of ‘56’ or the historical marker when the political gates of the ‘elite’ gave way to Sri Lanka’s (Sinhala speaking) non-elite.

That marker signified perilous dangers on the horizon for the Tamil minority in particular with the long arc of deplorably majoritarian politics also eventually catching up the Muslim minority in its destructive reach. That apart, the new President had cut his political teeth in the second insurrection of the Marxist inspired Janatha Vimuthi Peramuna (JVP) in the nineteen eighties which led to barbaric waves of insurrectionist terror and state counter-terror resulting in the deaths of thousands.

For many, that revolutionary history was a disquieting factor in ‘AKD’s’ election campaign, allayed though this was by the comforting gloss of the academic and professional dominated NPP. In fact, that remains a key concern with the electorate.  That said, the first steps taken in office by a ‘leftist who delivered the biggest jolt to Sri Lanka in decades’ as a colorful headline in the New York Times put it a few days ago, were encouraging. That included the appoint-ments of provincial governors who were different from the measly political riffraff elevated to these positions.

Minimum steps towards good governance

The recalling of security assigned to former parliamentarians (excepting the former Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the leader of the Opposition) was also a positive. Apart from the din about the luxury vehicles parked in front of the Presidential Secretariat, two further points on the scorecard were adherence to court orders This is firstly in reverting to the previous sys-tem to issue entry visas which had been handed over without due process to a consortium charging exorbitant fees and giving fat commissions (no doubt) to a chosen few of the previ-ous regime and secondly, in appointing an acting Inspector General of Police (IGP).

All these were simple steps that former President Ranil Wickremesinghe might easily have taken if he had not been so consumed with his own hubris. Typically, it was Wickremesinghe arrogance in believing that he can twist any outcome to his liking which proved his undoing as much as being held captive by a corrupt cabal around him. But to return to the present, the fact remains that as positive these first actions of the Dissanayaka President are, they warrant only an encouraging pat on the head, so to speak.

Thus, we must practice both vigilance and caution in assessing the performance of the new President. This reminder is necessary. It is not by accident that the country’s endemic corrup-tion, gross human rights abuses and ‘state capture’ of governance institutions has crippled democratic growth for decades, leading to the declaration of bankruptcy in 2022. Contrary to popular belief, much of this was also not solely due to the conflicts that afflicted Sri Lanka, spanning the length and breadth of the Northern to Southern reaches of the land.

Caution must be the mantra going forward

Those conflicts and their devastating consequences brutalized if not bastardized Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities, entrenching ‘Deep State’ military systems by a grossly cor-rupt political establishment for its own survival. But that apart, the unhealthy exaltation of politicians elected into office if not if not the ‘savior complexes’ comprises a not inconsidera-ble part of why Presidents and Prime Ministers are allowed to renege on their promises of ‘good governance’ with nary a murmur of criticism.

Both in 1994 and in 2015, ‘system change’ was the rallying cry of Presidents and their Prime Ministers who finally did exactly the opposite, leaving shattered systems in their wake. Part of that degenerative process was the deification of rulers and the refusal of their evangelical-ly zealous supporters to acknowledge, much less respond, to constructive criticism. When the need for caution was stressed in these column spaces in the immediate aftermath of the ‘ya-hapalanaya’ Sirisena-Wickremesinghe win in 2015, those who took umbrage were exactly those who shouted the loudest on the need to uphold freedom of expression.

Just a month later, the first Central Bank bond scam was perpetuated under the stewardship of the Wickremesinghe Government, starting the painful process of the eventual collapse of the coalition administration leading to the advent of a Gotabhaya Presidency which set the seal on a collective disaster for the country.  That same acutely unhealthy fervor is now sweeping the country. The President’s address to the nation soon after his election win was distinguished by one singular note.

Winning over the minorities

He reminded the people that ‘the fruits of our victory will be more significant only if those who did not support us, also feel our joy.’ This was significantly different to former President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s obnoxious pledge that he would work for the (Sinhala) majority who elected him into power. Certainly, the new President’s challenge to ‘win over those who did not support us’ is formidable. Last week’s Presidential elections gave him a win without clear-ing the 50% barrier of the votes on either the first or second preference counts.

Perhaps an early start to winning over those yet un-persuaded would be to address the con-cerns of Sri Lanka’s Tamil and Muslim minorities who would not have been impressed very much with his Sinhala address to the nation.  That is aggravated by the spreading of hate speech by the NPP fan base against the people of the North and the East whose votes weighed more in favoiur of Opposition Samagi Jana Balavegaya contender Sajth Premadasa even as the election results came in.

This is again symptomatic of the ‘pro-Rajapaksa’ mentality of ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’ which was reflected in what Presidential contender Dissanayaka said when cam-paigning in the North as he exhorted the minorities to vote in the ‘same pattern’ as the South does.  In the final result, what ‘the (Sinhalese) South said’ was not all that clear.  Rather than an ‘electoral wave’ for the NPP, it appeared that the electorate was a tad wiser, barring large swathes that predictably went to the NPP in the South, parts of the North Western Province and the Western Province.

What our history teaches us

Notwithstanding, boisterous NPP front rankers are predicting a two-thirds majority in the coming General Elections in November 2024. That boast may be sheer optimism. Recent his-tory teaches us crucial warnings in this regard, most particularly the sheer aggrandizing non-sense of the Rajapaksa Presidency and the Rajapaksa Parliament in 2019/2020 ushered in on that same trajectory of undiluted adoration of a ‘new man’ as a warrior to ‘save’ the (Sinhala) people.

Sri Lankan farmers endured cruel absurdities such as the overnight ban on chemical fertilizer, Muslim families were not allowed to bury their covid-19 dead while politically linked television channels spewed hatred of the country’s minorities. Finally, the country was dragged to bankruptcy with thousands precipitated into poverty as no one dared to speak up against dis-astrous monetary and fiscal policies.

‘Beware of uncritical ‘savior’ complexes’ should be our collective mantra in the difficult months ahead.