VIEWPOINTS

A TIME TO PROTECT OR A TIME TO PROJECT

Wijith DeChickera is mindful that the main chance for regimes may not be the most meaningful fix for folks with a hierarchy of further needs

In a nation where elections are the polity’s lifeblood – yet, often a haemorrhage of the country’s resources – it’s with mixed feelings that the electorate greets the polls, whether timely or post-postponement.

Some feel (despite experiences of decades dampening democracy’s spirits) the franchise is an elixir, which our republic needs to maintain the people’s sovereignty.

The other side of the republican coin is those who think all politicians are charlatans, the system is so flawed it cannot be fixed, and hoopla about voting is overrated because it’s merely a circus taking a break – in-between daring ideas (‘a developed nation by 2048’), deceptive talk (‘abolish the executive presidency’ – who says that, anymore?) and desperate acts (‘ah, we wouldn’t have declared bankruptcy’).

While it’s academic whose perspective is right – or bearing a closer resemblance to objective reality as any political scientist or philosopher may hope – the fact of the matter is all rules of political fair play and traditional constitutionalism are suspended in election years.

So much so that it holds true, more than at any other time in our isle’s political life, that “politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies,’ at least according to British political writer and publicist Sir Ernest Benn.

A prime candidate for such troublemaking misdiagnoses recently was the facile panacea for Sri Lanka’s present political problems proposed by United National Party (UNP) General Secretary Palitha Range Bandara.

He assumed the pressing need was postponing discerning the people’s will, suggesting – unsuitably (as public backlashes and expert opinions from constitutional commentators proved him wrong) – a referen­dum be held to postpone by two years both presidential and parliamentary polls.

This was suggested ostensibly to ensure smooth progress of the economic reforms and recovery agenda, which it was thought must proceed apace, surpassing expression of popular sovereignty that could derail the process.

And whether it is one politico’s ‘political parthenogenesis’ or a canny testing of the electoral temperature by savvier political personages or parties is immaterial. As the truth be told, there are weightier matters awaiting the mindful action of a more astute government rather than a pragmatic administration with its eye on the main chance.

Needed: leaders looking beyond protecting self, the status quo and their circus of cronies.

Which begs the question what ‘troubles’ might be more meaningfully discerned – not only at the present juncture but with the medium term in mind and remembering that the long run is unpredictable at best or futile at worst in terms of planning for it in fickle politics.

An adaptive application of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs may provide some solutions while avoiding the pitfalls of political misdiagnoses and national misadventures.

For one, the physiological – at the first, lowest level of needs – is a demand that ‘bread and circuses’ politicos seem to be able to meet most satisfactorily at election times. The number of sweeteners handed out in the run-up to the polls is unconscionable. Cut price this, slashed rates that, freebies etc.

And it is high time the Election Commission enforced laws in earnest ahead of civil society agitation for more stringent campaign ethics.

For another, safety and security needs – a second tier from the bottom up – are another double-edged brace of swords.

From skyrocketing military budgets sucking up unconscionable quanta of Treasury shekels into spiralling defence expenditure (recently, the updated cost of a single line item constituted a fourfold hike in spending, to Rs. 75 billion – or 40% of the income tax quantum increase) – a customary money spinner of corrupt regimes desiring citizens’ inability to protest too much because it is ‘defence’ after all – to predictable disasters that bedevil the populace.

Whether handling floods and landslides annually or mitigating windfalls for unscrupulous procurers, the scope for reform is sky-high, wide and deep.

Then again, there are love and belonging needs – the third tier – spanning the gamut from harmony among the inter-ethnic relationships that characterise island life at community level, through neglected national reconciliation and ignored transitional justice imperatives, to the deeply felt desire for an overarching Sri Lankan unity and identity; which may seem transcendental now: too high up on Maslow’s aspirational scale to achieve.

Last not least, esteem needs – encapsulating lacunae in statesmanlike leadership required to see or do more than raise ourselves up by the bootstraps by dint of even as worthy a modus operandi as the ‘lab method’ of development that is de rigueur currently, and dream of placing our erstwhile Granary of the East on a far more dignified footing than as the servitor of an IMF short-term fix.

We’ve not forgotten the fifth and final dimension: self-actualisation.

However, it may have to wait until the International Monetary Fund completes its umpteenth programme; people have voted freely, fairly and frankly by expressing their true feelings; and a new, old or hybrid government steps in to pick up the mantle dropped by would-be political saviours of yore.