Back in the day when Bata used to dominate the local footwear landscape, one of its more endearing ads read, ‘First to Bata, then to school’. We were reminded of this when President Ranil Wickremesinghe recently said that the first, second, and third item on the agenda, as far as he was concerned, was the economy. But given the events that have unfolded in the week since he made that statement on 18 February, one is compelled to contemplate whether economic recovery is on the agenda at all.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that any effort to resurrect the economy must necessarily begin with achieving an acceptable degree of political stability. It must be kept in mind that the absence of a mass struggle does not suggest stability, but simply an illusion of it. The only way the stability that is critically required for economic revival could be achieved is through a leadership that is able and willing to ensure financial discipline, rule of law, and, more importantly, crack down on corruption. Therefore, to suggest that the economy can be mended without fulfilling these basic requirements will only amount to prescribing paracetamol for terminal cancer.
The same group of politicians who ran the economy into the ground is hardly the team that can inspire economic revival, as is now being attempted. Therefore, whether the President can run a one-man show in turning things around while being dependent on the group of 134 for survival is the billion-dollar question. However, with the President being handed the legal right to dissolve Parliament at a time of his choosing as of the 23rd of this month, he now has an ace up his sleeve to counter the 134 should cooperation become difficult. Whether that leverage can be put to good use is yet to be seen. However, the supreme irony of it is that an individual who failed to win a seat in Parliament now has the right to send home all those who did.
Be that as it may, it appears that the current leadership is of the notion that law and order is simply about preventing people from protesting and stamping its jackboot on people demanding their fundamental rights. If the Government is serious about ensuring law and order, it must first lead by example. After all, the law is the Constitution and no circular or directive issued by any political authority can ever override it. If a law cannot be observed for whatever reason, then it needs to be amended or abolished through the proper parliamentary procedure, rather than choosing to ignore it, which necessarily sends a dangerous message.
It is in this backdrop that the people were treated to a circus performance in Parliament on Thursday (23), with the so-called representatives of the people of the ruling party laughing, ridiculing, and mocking the people of this country who put them there by seemingly approving the denial of their franchise based on some technical issue. If, as we said earlier, the leadership is of the opinion that an election may tend to be inconvenient at this juncture, then the only way to go about it is to amend the election law.
The President recently stated that he valued democracy. “But democracy requires public order, law and order to be maintained and economic stability. Without them, you don’t have democracy but anarchy. And I will not allow the country to fall into anarchy,” he said. However, anarchy is often the byproduct of authoritarianism. Therefore, the leadership will do well to remember that in a democracy, rule of law is not a one-way street where a government lords it over the people the way it sees fit.
Government, after all, consists of representatives of the people and is answerable solely to the people, the sovereign. A government cannot pick and choose the laws it wishes to implement while ignoring others that may seem inconvenient. The law of the land is the Constitution and if the Constitution says an election must be held, then it must be held. If not, people have all the right to ask: where is the rule of law?
The ruling party trivialising something as profoundly important as the people’s franchise in Parliament last week is the surest omen of a difficult road ahead for economic revival. The President’s explanation that there never really was an election to begin with that required to be postponed has only succeeded in making a bad case worse. He told the House that he was not aware of an election being called on 9 March, notwithstanding newspaper headlines screaming it out loud for days and weeks and his own party submitting nominations for it.
We should not forget that Sri Lanka is sitting on a volatile political volcano. There is a limit that people can endure, having already been hemmed in from all directions as a direct consequence of poor political leadership that has driven millions to near starvation. Having endured all that, including the shrinking space for dissent, if now even their franchise is being robbed from them, then it is as good a recipe for disaster as any. The leadership must at least at this late hour acknowledge the people’s aspiration for change, which is not something that can be stifled for long through strong-arm tactics.
The clearest indication that change is anathema to the regime is the manner in which Parliament was prorogued for a second time in six months for the simple purpose of reconstituting the key parliamentary oversight committees that appear to have been a thorn in its flesh. The ugly ousting of Opposition lawmakers from these critically-important committees and replacing them with seemingly-pliable individuals has succeeded in sending all the wrong signals to the international community and every right-minded citizen hoping for a start in the fight against corruption.
Even though the administration can shout itself hoarse that there is nothing wrong with these appointments as the appointed members represent the Opposition, the fact of the matter is that the Opposition’s own nominees for these crucial posts have been dumped in favour of members nominated by the Government. Given that the entire world – especially the creditor community consisting of bilateral, multilateral, and independent entities – is closely watching developments, especially with regard to economic reforms, the new appointments will necessarily make a bad case worse in terms of credibility, which should be at the core of any effort to turn things around.
For all intents and purposes the credibility factor now lies in ruins even though the Government may be patting itself on the success of the committee coups. The appointments to COPF, COPA, and COPE go to prove that financial discipline, which is key for any sort of economic revival, is yet nowhere on the horizon. Not only that, the undermining of independent commissions through the mechanism of withholding essential funding for their operation is another blow to cleaning up the mess.
The people fought the good fight, resorting to peaceful democratic means to oust the former leader and in the hope of a new start. But it appears that the more things change, the more they stay the same. As already hinted by the Opposition parties, another people’s struggle seems inevitable. Playing with fundamental rights of the people citing an excuse as lame as the lack of funds is itself grounds for a poll.