The Stark Political Choices Facing Sri Lanka’s Voters

Sugath Kulatunga, … whose preferred title was “The Choice”

The President RW and the leader of the opposition in their political manifestos are making extravagant promises to the people in the process of seeking a path to come into power. So do the other Presidential candidates who have not so far tasted power. We cannot judge them on performance, while RW and Sajith could be judged on their past performance. Sajith was the Deputy of the ruling party and a senior Cabinet Minister of past UNP governments. RW held key Cabinet posts of Prime Minister, Minister of Education and also Industries. They are responsible for the present crisis in the economy as they did not address the balance of payments arena, particularly the balance of trade problem which has been the chronic issues.

During the time RW was the Minister of Education vast changes were taking place in the fast-growing countries like South Korea and Taiwan. These reforms became the foundations of their rapid economic development. But RW was not aware of these developments and our education system continued to drop out 95 percent of students out of the system at University Entrance level and to produce unemployable graduates. His industrial development was unable to produce a mamoty to match the Crocodile brand mamoty manufactured by Chillingtons of UK which we continue to import. So far, he has been distributing largess but not contributing to new employment or production. While 17 % of children under 5 years are malnourished and underweight and many stunted, his government has not been able to produce even an extra egg. As a politician he is a follower of Fredrick Hayek and the Mount Pelerin Society doctrine of extreme neo-liberalism.

On the often-repeated argument of RW that he rescued the country from dire straits and that a worse situation will emerge if he is not returned to power, I quote Prof. N.A.de S. Amaratunga in a recent artcle on LBN rebutting this logic.

 “Absence of fuel and gas queues are often cited as signs of economic recovery by politicians on the election platforms. On the contrary there is nothing to boast about because our poor people are worse off than they were. How fuel could be imported ending the queues was due to the fact that the foreign loan payments had been stopped and friendly countries had chipped in with some dollars and the country was able to find foreign exchange to import fuel and gas. This cannot be boastfully claimed as a stroke of a genius, for that was the obvious thing anybody would have done. After the Covid pandemic was brought under control export earnings, foregn remittance and tourism returned to normal and this resulted in the improvement of foreign reserves. This is the normal course of events after a pandemic and it would have happened under any sensible government.”

What is wrong with the old political parties is the political culture indelibly ingrained in the adherents since 1977 of making politics an instant path to wealth through corruption, nepotism and fraud. Achieving economic development without changing this culture is insufficient as the country will slide back to the status quo ante and may even become worse.

There is a risk in trying out new political forces which have not been tested before. But it may be worth the risk considering the danger of bringing back the old mafia. Voting has to be done with the utmost care in judging their history and past experience if any, and the competence and honesty of the new choice.

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 ALSO NOTE

Is our economy on the path to recovery?