Over the last week, with the Presidential Elections campaigns of candidates commencing, there has been a noticeable return to the use of populist slogans to gain votes, with clear disregard for the ground realities the governance of Sri Lanka faces, and the state of the national economy. 

This is not to say that Sri Lankans who have suffered significant economic hardships over the last four years, do not deserve relief. However, the ease with candidates, and key ones at that, pontificate about relief that ‘we will offer if elected’ should send a shiver down the spine of all Sri Lankans. The age-old political tactics of promising the popular ‘state relief’ packages should not be seen with any credibility in this day and age, especially with all that Sri Lanka endured over the two years, due to the economic crisis and bankruptcy.

The rude awakening from the economic crisis, gave Sri Lankans a bitter pill to swallow; the way they had allowed the island nation to be governed over decades, and more important in the recent past, had wrecked the nation. As such, Sri Lankan ought to be asking for a better defined and robustly argued set of economic policies from their presidential candidates. Sri Lankan voters can ill afford to vote based on ‘popular’ election promises, of which we have seen much of before, and suffered as a result.

Last weekend, the National People's Power (NPP) Presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) pledged to abolish VAT tax on food, healthcare, and education, under a future NPP government. Surprisingly, Dissanayake’s tax relief promise, sounds like an echo from the 2019 campaign of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who promised big business relief, and we all know how that impacted the state revenue collection and the disaster it led to. 

While taxing food, healthcare and education has been criticised from all sides of the political aisle, and has been key woe echoed by the masses, undoing taxes at the drop of a hat is no easy task. Today, while many will get much needed relief from such, we need to ask the hard question, if not from these (food, education and healthcare), what will we tax? The NPP, and all those who use the ‘tax relief’ carrot, must provide answers for such questions, when they throw around such populist promises. The SJB has also indicated that they will seek to bring relief for the middle-income category after renegotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). AKD and the SJB are not alone in making such claims, even President and Finance Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who long stood his ground on taxation following the IMF bailout plan, and bitterly refused to give into state sector trade union demand for pay increments and relief, today has done an about turn, and has undertaken to reduce some taxes. Wickremesinghe has also told a group of university administrators last week that the Government was looking at adjustments to the personal tax structure to provide some relief to the taxpayers. Wickremesinghe Government stood its ground on providing relief to state sector trade unionists for more than a year and a half, making the case, which stated that Sri Lanka must simply either increase state revenue or redirect existing funds from other critical areas to provide the relief, which many, including University academics sought. So, what has changed now, that Wickremesinghe is confident to ‘about turn’ on that stance and fold to trade union pressure? Has Sri Lanka found a new and sustainable revenue source? Or is it political expediency at play?

Since state revenue raising has not greatly improved, nor has Sri Lanka discovered new revenue sources, the public must question who the politicians advocate such relief, will source funds for? What will be sacrificed to provide them? Or are these simply an election carrot, like before. Sadly, it seems that many of the key Presidential candidates have pledged to reduce taxes in the event of securing the Presidency, but not explained how they will do it and sustain it?  Sri Lankans should be wary of such promises and ask how feasible is it to cut taxes immediately without risking the economic recovery process, on which the future of all Sri Lankans rest?