A TIME TO CAST STONES IN THE TINDERBOX

Wijith DeChickera is a part of an electorate that is still deeply divided between survival and social justice as Sri Lanka goes to the polls

The wait – often painful because democracy must be about reality as much as right to representation – is over and islanders of voting age will cast their ballots to elect Sri Lanka’s ninth executive president.

And the stakes are arguably higher than they have ever been – with not merely governance issues as they pertain to over 21,950,000 people but global ramifications in what is demonstrably an annus mirabilis of going to the polls worldwide.

An estimated two billion voters will or have made their selections on behalf of twice that number of global citizens in 60 countries, heralding ‘the largest election year in history’ – including for major electorates such as India, the US and Europe.

Political pundits perceive that with so many people going to the polls, 2024 could cause some caucuses to reverse the pendulum’s swing to a more salubrious position, arresting the ‘great democratic backslide’ evident since the mid-2010s when several nations tilted towards autocracy and populism.

Sri Lanka may well prove to be no exception to the type of ‘pendular democracy’ characterising polities that endure much authoritarianism – only to say finally, ‘no more.’

For we islanders are a ‘resilient, pensive and mature’ electorate (as academics and armchair commentators fondly observe) in adversity – if occasionally prone to sudden rushes of blood to the head when wars are won or prosperity lost.

We dare not advocate one candidate’s chances for fear of alienating the affections of the electorate for another man (note there are no women riding into the lists, unlike our champion lady cricketers who engage in sporting battle and do us all proud).

In an arena where there are giants of local politics contending with tyros at governance (who are no less favoured as dark horses), to say nothing of a brace of businessmen and a slew of contenders from traditional political parties contesting as brash newbies, the principle of ‘nation above self’ must prevail in a milieu where the outcome will test Sri Lanka’s short-term survival mettle.

It is a mantra that doesn’t come naturally to many or indeed sat ill with past incumbents in the highest office in the land. Many visionary manifestoes and high-minded ideals have proven to be not much more than electioneering idealism or canny slogans.

Far from transforming our nation state, some have served to make Sri Lanka a cautionary byword among the traduced portals of failed states and bankrupted economies.

So best that warning shots about mistaking slyness for statesmanship be fired across electors’ bows…

More astute minds than that of a mere editorialist see disaster lurking ahead for those who would seek to replace the captain of a once sinking ship who stood tall at the helm through fire – literally – and sailed this crippled vessel through dire straits.

Even though the regime that sustained him in power appeared chronically ready to ditch their erstwhile president by proxy, more conservative electors continue to do so at their peril – although President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s sabre rattling contra the judiciary must puzzle his most faithful camp followers.

For it neither does him credit as a democrat nor serves to build up the party of the man now running as an independent. Any elected head of state must respect the division and separation of powers between executive, legislature and judiciary; or run the risk of rejection by a republic they would govern.

Some thought exceeding that of the passing kind must cross the minds of us ingrates before such a course change is ventured into lightly, surely?

For warnings of foul weather of the old and unbearably burdensome type have been sounded by all our swains, from academia and harried economists to the IMF – if a regime inimical to the ongoing reforms is ushered in by overzealous voters high on a sense of social justice but short of commonsense.

There probably isn’t a discerning soul with a finger on the pulse of morality and ethicality (and sundry luxuries we can’t quite afford at the present juncture) who doesn’t yearn to see social justice done, past villains brought to book, Sri Lanka’s lost wealth (allegedly, so artfully removed by elected conmen) restored to state coffers and transitional justice shifted from ivory towers on the NGO circuit to weeping widows on the ground.

But harebrained schemes to transmogrify the commonwealth into a social democratic paradise overnight must be shifted to their proper place and rightful context – that of a movement by civil society en masse rather than the impulse of any sole political party (especially muddleheaded militants) – until such time as the whole polity can take up arms against all that is ungodly in the realm.

It is unthinkable to heap severe hardships on those already struggling under Sisyphean loads (an estimated 65% of people borrow to get by, making the gargantuan quanta of private debt today a companion burden to what we owe externally) in seeking to alleviate that hunger for bringing criminal cabals to book by burning our houses to the ground.