Battleground changed?

It is a well-known fact that the attention of the entire society is focused on the next election. Some feel that there is a possibility of holding the provincial elections before the presidential election.

The notion that provincial council elections will precede the presidential election has arisen due to some statements made by the Election Commission Chairman recently. He declared that he will resign if provincial council elections are not held before December. Due to his statement, some think that there is a possibility of provincial council elections being held first. However, my understanding is that all the chances of such a possibility are over. Since holding presidential elections in November is mandatory under the Constitution, there is nothing wrong in thinking that the first national election we will face this year will be the presidential election.

In this week’s column, I am not focusing on what kind of person should be the candidate for the next presidential election. My focus is to highlight some issues that are relevant to the current situation in the country which need to be addressed in the next presidential election.

In other words, I am trying to raise some points which people think should be debated in the discourse space of the next presidential election campaign.

In my point of view, it does not matter who is nominated by each political party as their candidate because economy and international relations-related subject matter has surfaced in the political landscape as matters of much greater importance due to the nature of the country’s current political situation.

Although it is clear that the topic of national security is of great concern in addition to the two aforementioned topics, in my personal point of view – although the need for strengthening national security is relatively high with the emergence of Islamist extremism – the issues of national security are not as complex as the ones of the economy and international relations. It is clear that economic issues have been a major topic of discussion in almost every national election in this country, but this time, the gravity of that factor has increased.

Two topics of importance

Since the Sri Lankan model of market capitalism – introduced in 1977 – has now pushed the entire country into a serious crisis, it is important to identify the best strategies to formulate future economic strategies suitable for a country like ours; that has become the greatest challenge the country is facing right now. There are many important issues that are bound to this one. On one hand, as a country in which the Government bears a great responsibility to provide social welfare, the extent of the State in doing that should be redefined, while also redefining the service and production sectors to be released and handled by the market. The current economic crisis has grown to the extent where the above factors have to be streamlined with immediate effect. Today, the worst crisis in our country is maintaining a state apparatus which has already collapsed, without addressing the issue in a proper manner.

The prime mandate of the agency called the State is intervening in areas and scopes that individuals or companies in the private sector cannot resolve or handle. In that sense, matters pertaining to national security and infrastructure fall under the scope of the State.

The SLFP and the former left governments that have been in power since Independence have always thought the scope of the State should be above the domination of the market. UNP governments have particularly pushed this model to the opposite end. That means the UNP’s policy was to curtail the power of the State to the maximum extent possible and enhance control over the market. The open economic policy of 1977 is the culmination of this process. All the governments that came to power after 1977 were stuck within the boundaries laid out by the economic policies introduced by the Jayewardene Government. Despite efforts taken by all governments since 1994 to reach an economic model beyond those limits, what the country has inherited is a crisis situation in which the entire national economy has to be sacrificed to pay annual loan instalments.

My observation is that there is no truth in the present Government’s claims that they have delivered more than any other government in the economic sphere. The sole intention of the free market model of the Jayewardene Government was to create a new, industrialised country through a powerful president who could harshly control the State and allow market capitalism to grow. But we all know now that the above idea has become a mere dream.

Dr. Charitha Herath
Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy
University of Peradeniya 

As per my past experiences, I too believe that there is some basis for the argument that a powerful executive is needed for the open economy to operate in a country like ours. The current Government’s attempt, however, is to minimise the powers of the executive and to open up the economy unlike ever before. On the other hand, it is important to note that the flow of foreign currency into the country is shrinking and the number of means by which foreign currency outflows is increasing. Above all, the most serious crisis is maintaining a system of state institutions which are unproductive and inefficient. Some of the state-owned enterprises are not involved in any kind of development; they only maintain a payroll.

It is inevitable that a comprehensive review and proposals for resolution of this situation will become critical areas of ​​debate in the next presidential election campaign. The attempt to win a presidential election by telling other stories and ignoring this issue succeeded in 2015. But the country has now reached a point where it will be unlikely to win a presidential election again using the same old strategy. It is very important to realise that a similar rhetoric cannot become victorious in a presidential election twice; just as a plane cannot be hijacked twice using the same strategy.

Newly emerging crises

Therefore, it is imperative to prioritise finding solutions to the country’s problems in the economic sphere; not just after the presidential election, but before it as well. It is important to understand that there are many important topics tied to this, such as how to reduce the debt burden of the country, how to manage the size of the public sector that is growing daily, and how to manage the loss-making public enterprises.

The second important topic is to discuss the agendas of each candidate to identify what solutions they propose for the newly emerging crises in relation to our involvement in international geopolitics. The issue of managing power politics with India, China, and the US for the betterment of our country needs to become a significant topic in the debating space of the next presidential election.

Since 2015, foreign policy and double standards of the present Government have greatly compromised our national security. It is very clear that as a direct result of bad governance during the last four years, the country has potential to become a breeding ground for even more serious crises and attacks relative to Zahran’s attack. It is very important to be aware of the role Sri Lanka has to play in critical instances such as the US’s actions against China and China’s actions against India. I think that the danger of this situation is more evident when we think of some of the agreements made by the Government with the US recently, which could subject the politics of our country to crises in the global geopolitical space. The main points of discussion in the campaign of the next presidential election should be centred on the two above issues.

(Dr. Charitha Herath is a senior lecturer at the Department of Philosophy of the Peradeniya University. The writer can be reached at @charith9 on Twitter)