VIEWPOINTS

STORM WARNING FOR WINNING WEATHERVANES

Wijith DeChickera hopes that the prevailing winds may have to push hard to power through to the victory we all say we want Sri Lanka to see

The mood of a nation can be as ephemeral as some monsoonal growl of thunder that doesn’t develop into a full-blown storm but rather, melts away like an ice cream on a hot July day.

Such was the hype surrounding the prospects of Sri Lanka’s candidate for the recently concluded 72nd Miss World pageant con­ducted in Telangana, India, where our charming contender with brains and a purpose captivated the hearts of all but the grouches across the country – and yet, failed to make more than a mark in one of the side contests, much less clinch the main title.

Every Tom, Dick and Harischandra had a theory as to why model and social activist Anudi Gunasekara couldn’t impress the Indian judges despite her contestant introduction video going on to become one of the most viewed clips with that presentation garnering over 300,000 views in the run-up to the finals.

These conjectures ran the gamut from the charitable (‘Miss World 2025 winner Suchata Chuangsri of Thailand was a better prospect in many ways for the title’) through the critical (‘our 25 year old didn’t have her hair groomed as well as the other candidates for the crown’) to the curiously quirky and quite possibly closer to hitting the nail on the head (‘the franchise is a money-spinner for the right fit and its proprietors allegedly fix the result each year’).

Be that as it may and despite the fact that the ground reality of such international beauty pageants is a labyrinth of mini contests to negotiate adroitly, we must not miss the truth that Anudi did her nation proud by becoming the first Sri Lankan aspirant to the overall title to reach the finals of the Miss World Talent, head-to-head and multimedia competitions.

In addition to these commendable achievements, the young lady offered the international audience captive to her presentation much food for thought with an earnest articulation of her beauty with a purpose project Saheli, a campaign to combat period poverty in Sri Lanka.

So let us add our own encomium as an echo to the myriad voices chorusing that no matter where she was placed in the final rankings, Miss Sri Lanka 2025 remains a winner in many ways.

After all, we all want our beloved island nation to win and power through to victory in many arenas of our multiple challenges – don’t we?

Therefore, may we humbly propose that as with international pageants so with national politics.

But the mindset of our people and their elected representatives can be as mercurial as that gusty wind that wraps grimy scraps of withered leaves about our feet as we take our early morning hour constitutional or grows into a terrifying cyclone that tears down tall trees, hoardings and our sense of security that all is as it should be in our blessed republic.

On the one hand, large swathes of the populace were swept up by the strong breeze signalling such a sea change when they voted overwhelmingly for the National People’s Power (NPP) in the presidential and parliamentary elections of September and November last year – although the NPP hoopla had to take a backseat in the local government polls of less than a year later, partly because of the vagaries of our proportional representation (PR) electoral system.

While everyone from academics to armchair commentators had their pet theories as to why over a hundred councils were hung, compelling the government to learn the hard lessons of political manoeuvring and negotiations, and bringing out the cynical manipulation of now suddenly united opposition parties, the truth of the matter is that politics remains a corruptive creature and it is no easy task to uproot and relegate the old political culture to a wastebasket.

There remain the broken promises (from a critical perspective) or yet to be fulfilled promises (if one is still inclined to be charitable) of the incumbent administration to be addressed.

First, by the powers that be themselves, if they’re to salvage their reputation and save the reforms programme from being sidetracked; then the political opposition, which seems all too ready to sabotage project ‘Clean Sri Lanka’; and ultimately, the people (that’s a challenging POV).

These campaign pledges span the spectrum from the political (abolishing the executive presidential system through a redrafted constitution) through the social (dismantling the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act and insidious Online Safety Act) to the economic (boosting Sri Lanka’s export portfolio and attendant earnings in such a way as to grow our foreign exchange reserves to begin sustainably servicing sovereign debt in 2028 and beyond).

Politics – much less governments earning social capital – may not be everyone’s cuppa. However, beauty pageant wins will not make moratoria on debt repayments more viable.

It behoves all of us who say we want Sri Lanka to win and power through to a panoply of victories on multiple fronts to be and act united, plan proactively to stave off unexpected losses and work smart to win international favour.