LAND OF PROMISES! American statesman Benjamin Franklin once said that “in this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” Here in Sri Lanka, one is inclined to add another certainty: broken promises!

It is a fact that in post-independence Sri Lanka, promises have been made and broken by most if not all governments; it’s seemingly part and parcel of our political culture.

The irony is that the people who cast their vote every four or five years seem to have short memories – of umpteen broken promises!

Worse still, the corporate community and others with ulterior motives have made a habit of jumping on the bandwagon of political power in the aftermath of elections, so much so that the correlation between the installation of a new government and business confidence reaching new and dizzy heights is par for the course.

The LMD-PEPPERCUBE Business Confidence Index (BCI) bears testimony to this assertion, given that it is the only gauge of its kind in this country.

Not even the end of the civil war in May 2009 saw the BCI reach the highs that it has after just about every presidential and general election since its inception back in January 1997; the postwar index of 161 pales into insignificance in comparison to where the barometer has stood in the aftermath of elections.

At the very core of this story of a circus that continues to run its never ending course is the fact that the BCI’s all-time high of 204 was recorded in September 2015 when the yahapalanaya (good governance) regime assumed power (it stood at 175 points prior to the poll) – and less than 12 months later (in June 2016), it was back down to a lowly 126.

Fast track to most recent national polls and the index moving up, up and away since October last year, first from 100 to 139 when the incumbent won the presidency and then to match its all-time high – 204 in February, not long after the November general election.

Meanwhile, the highest post-election jump (75 basis points… vs. the spike of 72 following the end of the war) during the BCI’s 27 year existence followed the November 2019 presidential election, when the BCI shot up from 111 to 186 points.

The other constant in the correlation between business confidence and elections is that since January 2000, the index has spiralled down to where it was before the people voted, not long afterwards – with the one exception being year 2002, when its gains stood firm at slightly over 100 against the backdrop of a ceasefire agreement between the then government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

So if common sense prevails, one is tempted to surmise that the gauge of corporate sentiment heads south when the election euphoria dies down, as promise after promise is broken and the reality of another failed regime sinks in!

Only time will tell whether history will repeat itself in the month ahead… yet again.

– Editor-in-Chief