It will not take soothsayers, astrologers, or prophets to predict that 2025 will indeed be Sri Lanka’s year of reckoning. Why? Because despite assertions to the contrary, the country remains delicately poised between salvation or damnation and at the mercy of its many external stakeholders. The people are aware of the gravity of the situation, having literally been to hell and back over the last few years, and are eagerly monitoring the actions of those whom they have installed in office to rectify the situation. This is why 2025 will be a year of reckoning not only for the powers that be but also for the people who put them there.
While it will take much courage and a herculean effort on the part of those in power to ensure salvation, one wrong move can easily result in a return to the instability of the not-so-distant past. A prominent Minister was quoted as saying last week that the present regime had brought about stability since assuming office 100 days ago. The statement, rather than reassuring the people, as the intention might have been, had the opposite effect, with people being reminded that the stability the Minister referred to came long before the Presidential Election of September 2024. What the comment highlighted therefore was the paucity of progress, especially in relation to the promises made.
By now it is reasonable for people to anticipate significant progress on the promises made, especially where timelines have been specified. As such, rather than informing the nation on the status of progress of its core promises – such as on the number of former ministers found to have been taking commissions, resulting in bloated electricity and fuel bills, those found to have stashed funds in foreign safe havens and bought property all over the world, measures taken to reduce the cost of living, etc. – harping on about the stability that came long before the advent of the regime is unlikely to score it any points with the public.
Usually when new governments that have promised large-scale change are elected to office, most of the promised changes are implemented in the first 100 days. There is a reason for this. It is much easier to effect the big changes at the beginning of a term rather than midway or at the end of it. This is because resistance levels to change are at their lowest soon after a regime receives a mandate – an overwhelming one making it even more easy. But resistance tends to intensify as time goes by and the probability of regimes bartering popularity for change diminishes accordingly. This is why most promises that are not delivered in the first few months remain undelivered five years later.
To its credit, the last elected Government to last its full term, the Maithripala Sirisena-led ‘Yahapalana’ regime, was able to go the full term despite the many issues that constantly plagued it because it delivered at least half of what it promised in the first 100 days. These included a significant reduction in the powers of the executive presidency – subsequently reversed by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration, the setting-up of independent commissions, filing of legal action against those accused of corruption, etc.
One must appreciate the fact that the National People’s Power (NPP) regime has set relatively stiff targets for itself, stemming from the aspirations of the people. The achievement of these targets will sooner or later define its success or failure. However, unlike its predecessors, not much progress has come about on the key issues that drove its pre-election agenda. These include the abolishing of the executive presidency, the fate of the 13th Amendment and Provincial Councils, abolition of the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act and Online Safety Act, etc.
It is worthwhile to recall that abolition of the executive presidency was promised by just two parties at the last couple of elections while the rest preferred to keep quiet on the subject. The two parties were the NPP and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB). It is significant that it was these two parties that scored the most at both polls last year – one becoming the winner and the other the runner-up. What it underscores is the importance of the issue and the cost of neglecting it, as many others have learnt the hard way in the recent past. While the majority trusted the NPP over the SJB to deliver on this most famous of promises, the first 100 days under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake have not yielded a single word on this matter.
Given its perceived commitment to the change movement, it appears that the NPP has made life that much harder for itself by seemingly over-promising and facing the prospect of under-delivering – an outcome the nation will not take too kindly to, given past experience. While it remains eminently more profitable to have under-promised and eventually over-delivered even at its own pace, the parameters and timelines already set for itself in print will eventually begin to bite. There is no discounting the fact that over the last three years since 2022, the country has slowly but surely laid the foundation for change; an aspirational change borne out of years of struggle, want, and deprivation, stemming from corruption, mismanagement, and wastage.
It is no secret that this toxic formula has been the cause of almost all of the nation’s woes, of which the people have had enough and called an end to, not once but thrice in succession; twice last year at the hustings on top of the unceremonious sacking of the last elected President, which in fact is what triggered the change movement. That movement, for all intents and purposes, is still a work in progress. It is for these profound reasons that the new regime cannot in any manner afford to underestimate the enormity of the expectations people have of it.
Over the course of the last three years, the people have patiently played their part in the most democratic manner, in the process setting an exceptional example to the rest of the world. It is that example that laid the foundation for Sri Lanka’s change movement, which over time has been anchored on the reasonable anticipation that those whom they elect will fix what is clearly broken. Based on that assumption, it is up to the new regime that championed change for the better to make good on that promise. While the regime has over and above the constitutional, legislative, and executive power it requires to go about its task, what it does not have in equal measure is time.
As far as the NPP is concerned, it is constrained by its own time limitations as it asked the people for just one opportunity to prove its credentials (‘eka paarak deela balanna’), thereby effectively disqualifying itself from a second opportunity should it fail to deliver. It is for this reason that the NPP has its work cut out in 2025. The sooner it stops whining and chasing every dog that barks along the way, the better it will be for its own caravan.
That, of course, is dependent on its own single-mindedness of purpose. If the NPP was insincere to the extent that it championed the cause simply for the sake of securing power, then every distraction will in fact be a blessing and will likely be grabbed with both hands. The current trend, where media circuses are more or less the order of the day as opposed to delivery of promises, makes one ponder if not query the bona fides of the regime.
While the heady celebrations of last 31st night were a welcome distraction and saw the nation party like there is no tomorrow, with Colombo bursting at its seams with partygoers, the reality of another new year with new and greater challenges appears to have sobered up the nation. A nation that is expectantly awaiting the dawn of a new era, an era in which what is broken will be fixed not only in word but in deed. One can only hope that the new regime is receptive to the palpable sense of anticipation that this new year has brought with it.