ELECTION FEVER! It is true that we should take solace from the fact that Sri Lanka’s economy bounced back from a prolonged recession (as many as six consecutive quarters of negative growth) to register a 1.6 percent uptick in the third quarter of last year – it rebounded from a contraction of 3.1 percent in the preceding three months to perhaps signal that the nation’s worst economic and financial crisis has been laid to rest. What’s more, the quarter that followed witnessed a further acceleration to 4.5 percent growth..

But wait a minute…

Despite the likelihood of more good news on the economic growth front – the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for instance, is standing by its projection of a somewhat healthy 4.8 percent growth acceleration for 2024 – whether this momentum can be sustained is more a political question than one of pure economics.

Worse still, the likely disruption to the island’s economic rebuilding phase could come in two instalments!

First, when elections (going by the book so to say, beginning with the presidential poll) are announced, and the nation and its people are confronted by the prospect of mixed messaging and the customary mumbo jumbo (political opportunism… in words only), leave alone the threat of disruption to daily life and business.

And then there’s the election aftermath!

Given that the executive presidency reigns supreme, it is this – the mother of all elections – that will likely determine Sri Lanka’s socioeconomic trajectory for the next five years.

Damningly however, the presidential election field constitutes a mirror image of a misspent past although the incumbent (who has yet to announce his candidature) must be credited for single-handedly lifting the nation out of the morass it was in not long ago even though he remains unpopular among the hoi polloi for one reason or the other.

So it’s time to brace ourselves for the loud noises we’re likely to hear from multiple election platforms, and countless permutations of what life and business will be like at this time next year – so much so that if there’s a vaccine to protect us from the inevitability of election fever, we’d be inclined to take it!

Indeed, our immune systems will soon be tested!

– Editor-in-Chief