VIEWPOINTS

A TIME TO PLANT AND THE TIME TO UPROOT       

Wijith DeChickera hopes that the paradigmatic changes being proposed and made to the political culture will be endorsed by the establishment

The die is cast: Sri Lanka has a new president in the form of Anura Kumara Dissanayake a.k.a. ‘AKD.’ In an unprecedented development, a larger than expected segment of the electorate voted for the National People’s Power’s (NPP) leader, ushering in a regime that is described as ‘leftist,’ ‘socialist’ and ‘Marxist leaning.’

Certainly, the regime change looks set to introduce sweeping changes to nation state, bureaucracy and political culture.

Already, a sense of anxiety in business, civil society and internationalist circles has been somewhat assuaged by the professional manner in which Dissanayake, as a tyro at these levels of governance, has conducted affairs of state and government.

The president’s brief and simple swearing in ceremony in parliament struck the right note, resonating well among an electorate that was once sickened – in many senses of the word including fevered and fed up – by appeals to race, religion and a false sense of patriotism.

Indeed, the tone of the new chief executive’s communications is unequivocal and reassuring, even enthusing some critics of this former youth member of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), that fears about a JVP led crackdown on the rich, powerful elites and other politically exposed personages would not eventuate, being evidently merely the overworked rumour mill doing the rounds on social media in the run-up to the presidential election.

Also galvanising a growing sense of confidence in the NPP’s stated objectives to rationalise ‘big government’ was the small interim cabinet – to the tune of a record number of three ministers sharing all key portfolios – which Dissanayake appointed in the aftermath of dissolving parliament, after he was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s ninth executive president.

His choice of prime minister – academic Dr. Harini Amarasuriya – sent a strong signal that the NPP administration would not only enable aspiring young politicians to sweep up the shards of the glass ceiling that was shattered by her two predecessors (former premiers Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga) but also pave the path for more women for the JVP to realise its aspiration of a much greater female representation in parliament.

It was not all ‘roses are red and violets are blue’ over the prime ministerial appointment. Much to the shame of a nation on the cusp of more transformation than the purely political, it brought out the worst of chauvinism in some quarters – and eliminating that is also a part of the winds of change that the NPP regime may bring about.

So it would be to the detriment of the emerging new ethos of equity, equitability and parity if anyone were to stand against it.

Naturally, none of this means that the new regime will not have more than its fair share of challenges – and chal­lengers.

The pros of the promised social justice and a serious attempt to rid our beloved yet beleaguered nation state of the bane of corruption may come to founder sooner than later if the NPP does not manage the economy as well as is direly necessary, strictly tow the anti-cronyism line or per-suade the IMF to mitigate certain taxing aspects of its economic reforms as the party hopes.

There is also the politically and socially sensitive issue of addressing Byzantine levels of systemic and even endemic corruption that once brought our country to its knees, and a proud South Asian nation state to the brink and beyond of bankruptcy.

How the purportedly ‘sea-green incorruptibles’ of the NPP prosecute their case – judiciously avoiding the spectre of kangaroo courts (because at least two JVP stalwarts’ declared intention was not so much to ensure justice as to punish the alleged miscreants) – without playing to the gallery or striking political deals as many previous governments did (with their eyes on the main chance and electoral gains) will be the proof of the pudding.

The cons of challengers to these newbies at national administration may be a sort of blessing in disguise, however. A campaign trail prediction of then presidential contender AKD envisaged over two-thirds of MPs sitting in parliament now losing their meal tickets at the forthcoming general election.

If this eventuates, there may well be a rash of new parties contesting each other to fill the ranks of the political opposition in parliament, providing much needed checks and balances to a house once hijacked by illiterates at best and tax cheats at worst.

As to whether this would mean that the age of the calibre of statesmen of old – such as former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, who steered the ship of state out of the shallows of sovereign default into safer waters in a sterling manner – is over, only time will tell…

That time is now, as the people go to the polling booths for the second time in the space of two short months to exercise their franchise – to further or frustrate the winds of change that have been blowing through the republic since the days of the people’s struggle that was most demonstrably expressed in the movement of popular sovereignty culminating in the aragalaya.