In a country where nothing shocks or surprises its citizens anymore and where a fine line divides the sublime from the ridiculous, the lead story of our daily edition on Friday (26) managed to drive home the point that notwithstanding what the people think or have come to realise in the past 12 months, politicians in general and those of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) in particular are not about to give up their favourite pastime of taking the citizenry for a ride.
In this particular instance, the story was about the ruling SLPP’s stance on the contentious subject of devolution of power. For the purpose of clarity, this is what the party’s General Secretary was quoted as saying: “It is ridiculous to discuss devolution of power when the Provincial Councils (PCs), a key feature of the 13th Amendment, are not functioning. The Government should either scrap the PCs or formally establish them.”
The significance of the statement was not lost on the newspaper’s editors, who gave it the prominence it deserved in order to enlighten the public on the continuing political doublespeak of those who are in Government but want the people to believe that they are not.
It will be recalled that it was just 24 hours before this pronouncement came that the SLPP parliamentary group voted en bloc to unseat the outspoken Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission through the extreme procedure of a vote in Parliament, over his role in the controversial electricity pricing saga. The outcome of the vote with 124 SLPP MPs voting in favour underlined the fact that it was still the SLPP that called the shots in Parliament and was very much the party in power.
Therefore, for the General Secretary of that party, who also happens to be a Member of Parliament who too voted just the previous day, to come out and state that the ‘Government’ must look at either establishing or scrapping the PC system, amounts to nothing more than doublespeak.
How else does one describe a party that came together to send home someone who the party itself had appointed just a couple of years ago and now finds him a thorn in the flesh, but when it comes to a more complex and contentious issue like the 13th Amendment, it suddenly retreats into a shell and wants the ‘Government’ to tackle the issue, as if it isn’t the Government.
This episode clearly highlights the SLPP’s infamous duplicity, where whatever is of use to it is credited to its account while whatever is perceived as being of no use politically is credited to the account of the ‘Government,’ which it wants the people to believe is not the SLPP. While there is no doubt that this time-tested method has worked well in the past, one would have thought that a rethink might have been necessary in the post-Aragalaya context, but at least the Secretary of the SLPP deems it unnecessary. Therefore, the now reputed modus operandi of the party to stay in business is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Needless to say, it is this indifferent approach to major bottleneck issues by what passes for our political leadership these days, despite the enormity of the problems facing this bankrupt nation, that is seemingly making recovery that much more difficult and painful.
Every voter in the country is by now aware of the fact that it is none other than the SLPP that is the sole stumbling block to the conducting of scheduled elections, owing to its diminishing electoral fortunes. Therefore, to throw its own appointed President under the bus in order to salvage itself from the allegation of delaying elections is indeed rich by its own standards. In fact, it is becoming quite a trend of late to throw the President into the deep end, letting him either sink or swim, knowing that either way it will be a win for the beleaguered party. As for the President who is wholly dependent on the SLPP for survival, all he can do right now is grin and endure.
It is in this backdrop that President Ranil Wickremesinghe has a herculean task on his hands in convincing the likes of Japan that he means business and that the rest of his Government, which essentially consists of the same individuals who antagonised and annoyed them to the extent that it compelled them to take the unprecedented step of withdrawing from all development projects in the country, will now fall in line with his thinking.
It is universally acknowledged that the usually diminutive Japanese have the mindset of an elephant; they will forgive, but never forget. In that sense, the catastrophic damage caused by the previous Rajapaksa administration to the close friendship between the two countries that has been carefully nurtured ever since J.R. Jayewardene reached out to them in San Francisco in 1952 was all but destroyed overnight and whether Wickremesinghe’s charm alone will convince them to reconsider their stance and return to help the country get back on its feet, only time will tell.
After all, Japan, like everyone else, cannot be unaware of the ground reality of the distorted parliamentary representation that is keeping the presidency afloat, and that apologies and assurances ring hollow in the face of the unrepentant SLPP parliamentary majority. To add insult to injury, the Cabinet Minister whom the Japanese Ambassador in Colombo accused of soliciting a bribe continues to remain as a powerful Minister after a committee appointed by Wickremesinghe cleared him of wrongdoing, leaving the Ambassador with egg on his face. It is only second to the belittling of the $ 1.5 billion Japanese-funded Light Rail Transit project which was arbitrarily cancelled overnight, once again following the report of yet another ‘committee’.
Diplomacy has never been the forte of the SLPP. Used to buying up MPs through various inducements locally, it has been at sea on how to secure support externally in the absence of such possibilities. In fact, the only nations that could be counted as friends whenever the party was in power happened to be those frowned upon by the West.
Whether he likes it or not, Wickremesinghe will be straddled with this baggage wherever he goes, unless he distances himself from the SLPP which in itself will be politically suicidal. So while one has to empathise with Wickremesinghe for the baggage that he has to carry around by way of inheritance, it is also incumbent upon him to put the interests of the country ahead of personal and domestic political compulsions, however unsavory or suicidal it may seem. Unfortunately, the only practical way to go about it is to call for fresh Parliamentary Elections, which as of now he is constitutionally empowered to do.
However, if the likes of Japan and the West are amenable to the continuation of the status quo despite the current Parliament being a complete mockery of the present political landscape in the country, then it should pose no obstacle to his current attempts at diplomatic appeasement. Chances are diplomacy will be reciprocated, but the help sought will likely be restricted to promises, until such time that there is proper clarity on the political front with a Parliament that is representative of the current mood of the people.
Therefore, at the end of the day, while deception will in all likelihood continue to work on the domestic front, the regime will have to rethink its strategy on the external front if it is determined to maintain the current political dispensation while unlocking the billions that are urgently needed to put the country back on its feet.