Tuesday 30th April, 2024

The JVP-led NPP has come under an avalanche of criticism for a claim made by Nalin Hewage, one of its stalwarts, in a recent television debate, that the victims of the JVP’s reign of terror in the late 1980s were anti-social elements such as rapists, robbers, bootleggers and cattle rustlers. A protest was held near the JVP headquarters, Battaramulla, yesterday, against that controversial claim.

Hewage’s assertion runs counter to JVP/NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent statement, in Canada, to the effect that he was sorry for the JVP’s violence in the late 1980s. One wonders whether the JVP is remorseful for its terrorism (1987-89) or divided on that score, with the party’s ultra-radical core remaining unremorseful. Is the JVP in the NPP alliance trapped in what may be called the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde duality? Other political parties planning to contest the upcoming presidential election are out for the JVP’s blood, so to speak, the prominent among being the SJB, the UNP and the SLPP.

The UNP has condemned the JVP for the latter’s mindless violence in the late 1980s. It seems to think the people have forgotten its own Caravan of Death, which left thousands of youth dead. It ran many torture chambers, massacred suspects and buried them in mass graves or burnt them on tyre-pyres on the roadside by way of a warning to others. Most of all, the country would not have been plunged into a bloodbath if the UNP had not falsely accused the JVP of complicity in the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom and proscribed it. Perhaps, the UNP destroyed more lives than the JVP did during the 1987-89 period. Worse, the UNP, had no qualms about enlisting the JVP’s support to retain its hold on Parliament after falling out with President Maithripala Sirisena in 2018. The ‘Marxist’ JVP unashamedly propped up the beleaguered ‘capitalist’ UNP administration! The SJB leaders were in the UNP government, which benefited from the JVP’s backing. They did not make an issue of the JVP’s ugly past then.

The SLPP is also without a moral right to condemn the JVP for its past violence. Its leader Mahinda Rajapaksa would not have won the 2005 presidential election but for the JVP’s support. It was the JVP which led his propaganda campaign to all intents and purposes and made his victory possible.

The JVP is playing the victim card to gain public sympathy. It says it has become a target of the political elites in the SLPP, the UNP, the SJB, the SLFP, etc., They, it says, have banded together, shedding their differences, to suppress it. This claim is not without a modicum of truth. The leaders of the political parties opposed to the JVP co-operate to safeguard their interests, and that is why none of their leaders have been incarcerated for their crimes despite regime changes. But one disagrees with the JVP on the Marxist markers used in identifying elites. Going along with Vilfredo Pareto’s theory of elites instead, one may argue that the JVP leaders cannot be excluded from the political elites. Examining the structure and change of elites, Pareto has convincingly argued that elites and non-elites are not stable and new elites rise and oust othe old ones, and this change is called the circulation of elites, which has not spared the JVP. Besides, the JVP has earned notoriety for political promiscuity. It has honeymooned with the parties it describes as elitist. In 1970, it backed the SLFP-led United Front, and turned against the newly-formed government the following year. In the late 1970s, it got close to the UNP, whose government released its leaders from prison. Later, it turned on the UNP and met its Waterloo in 1989. In 1994, it backed the SLFP led by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, and subsequently fell out with it. In 2004, it coalesced with the SLFP and had representation in the UPFA Cabinet. The following year it enabled Mahinda to realise his presidential dream. It took on Mahinda later on. In 2015, it honeymooned with the UNP again for about five years. Now, it is on a campaign to vilify the UNP and its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Fear being expressed in some quarters that the JVP is likely to revert to its old ways and suppress political dissent ruthlessly the way it does in universities is not unfounded. Its role in the 2022 protests, especially the abortive march on Parliament, has fuelled the fear that it has not bid farewell to extra-parliamentary methods to capture state power.

The JVP would have the public believe that winning the next presidential election will be a walk in the park for it, but reality is otherwise. It has its work cut out to allay fears in the minds of the public. Having made a colossal blunder at the last presidential election, the people are not likely to vote blindly for any political party or person again. The least the JVP can do to gain public confidence is to tender an unqualified apology for its past crimes and publicly abandon its outdated ideology.

Monday 29th April, 2024

The Committee on Public Finance (COPF), headed by SJB MP Dr. Harsha de Silva, is reported to have called upon the government to re-evaluate its tax policies, systems and mechanisms to boost state revenue. It has reportedly explained revenue losses in terms of what has come to be known as the Laffer curve, according to which when tax rates are extremely high, they lead to a decrease in taxed activities such as investment and consumption, causing a drop in state revenue, and when tax rates are too low, they fail to yield sufficient revenue for the state.

The SLPP government, under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, did away with some taxes and slashed others at the expense of state revenue, but it has, under President Ranil Wickremesinghe, moved to the other extreme. The need is for a via media.

Citing reasons for the drop in state revenue, the COPF has highlighted the Excise Department’s failure to bust the fake revenue sticker racket and collect duties on liquor efficiently. However, impervious to logical reasoning and wise counsel, the government continues to labour under the misconception that jacking up taxes is the only way to boost state revenue although unconscionable tax increases lead to tax avoidance or evasion and promote the growth of the so-called underground economy.

The government does not curtail its wasteful expenditure for state revenue to increase. It has embarked on a campaign to shower handouts on the poor ahead of the upcoming presidential election to compass its political ends despite calls for it to rationalise welfare expenditure and ensure that poor relief is properly targeted. State funds are also wasted on useless government ceremonies and politicians’ junkets. Corruption, which is rampant among government politicians and officials, also causes huge losses to the state coffers, as evident from the Health Ministry procurement scams.

The COPF has expressed serious concern about the inordinate delay in digitalising the excise duty collection process. If the Excise Department as well as other revenue-generating agencies such as the Customs could be rid of various malpractices, which deprive the state coffers of billions of rupees annually, perhaps it may be possible to pass the benefits of revenue increases therefrom on to the public. It is the corrupt who fear and resist digitalisation, which could be considered the most efficacious antidote to corruption, for it engenders transparency.

It is hoped that the government will heed the COPF guidelines for increasing state revenue by preventing losses and eliminating waste instead of burdening the public with more taxes.

Fish or cut bait

The SJB and the JVP-led NPP keep challenging each other to a debate on the current state of the economy and how to revive it. At this rate, one wonders whether the debate will ever take place. The two parties are only wasting their time and energy. Given the appalling nature of parliamentary debates on economic affairs and other such vital issues, it is doubtful whether a debate between two Opposition parties, the SJB and the NPP, will leave the public any the wiser.

If either the SJB or the NPP has an alternative to the government’s economic recovery strategy and really feels for the country, it ought to unveil its silver bullet without further delay. There should be ample time for the economic programmes of the SJB and the NPP to be evaluated properly before the next election so that the public will be able to see if they are feasible.

The upcoming battle for the coveted executive presidency will be fought on the economic front. Having been taken for a ride, the public cannot be unaware that it is a mistake for their political allegiances to take precedence over their concerns about the economy. They are not likely to be swayed by promises and political rhetoric again while reliving hardships, shortages of essentials and winding queues.

If the SJB and the NPP are serious about having a debate on the economy, they should have a discussion, decide on a date and be done with it. Let them be asked to fish or cut bait.

There are many who believe that Mr. Karu Jayasuriya, though not in active politics now, is the best president this country never had. His accomplishments in the political field are too numerous to list and his integrity is widely acknowledged. Given the proximity of the event, people even in this country notorious for their short memories, remember his sterling performance as speaker in October 2018.

That was when then President Maithripala Sirisena, elected to office in 2015 mostly on anti-Mahinda UNP votes, triggered a constitutional crisis by appointing former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister while Ranil Wickremesinghe held that office and retained a parliamentary majority. The result was two concurrent prime ministers. The wild scenes in parliament then with chillie powder thrown and other missiles flung and the speaker physically restrained from taking his seat cannot be forgotten. Jayasuriya demonstrated guts showing he would not be intimidated by thuggery.

Karu Jayasuriya has assumed the leadership of the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) from Ven. Madulwawe Sobhita Thero who played a major role in fielding Maithripala Sirisena as a common opposition candidate in 2015. Sirisena was committed to abolishing the executive presidency running against then President Mahinda Rajapaksa who, abolishing the constitutional two-term limit on the presidency, unsuccessfully sought a third term for himself. Ven. Sobhitha’s untimely death undoubtedly enabled Sirisena to welsh on his promise of abolishing the executive presidency.

Among those who have recently held that office, Gotabaya Rajapksa, despite the ignominy of the manner of his exit, stands out as the only president who did not promise to abolish that office. Mahinda Rajapaksa did so in 2005. Chandrika Kumaratunga who talked of a bahubootha constitution came closest to getting rid of the office in 2000 but her attempt to retain transitional provisions in a new constitution retaining executive powers for herself until the end of her term resulted in that effort being aborted.

With the presidential election approaching at the end of this year, Karu Jayasuriya has once again brought up the question of abolishing the executive presidency. In a recent statement he said: “The NMSJ has been conducting discussions with social groups across the country. Based on the views expressed in those discussions, it is understandable that there is a widespread opinion among the people that the executive presidency should be abolished. Therefore the prospective candidates in the upcoming presidential election should state their positions regarding the abolition of the presidential system in their election manifestos. Those who promise to abolish it should also state the timeline for fulfilling it.”

With the clock ticking and the election drawing nearer, the matter of the abolition of the executive presidency seems to be a non-issue at this particular moment. Whether it will remain so further down the road or surface once again is an open question. President J.R. Jayewardene was not elected for his first term as president. As is well known, he scored a landslide five sixths parliamentary majority in the 1977 general election under the first-past-the-post Westminster-style election, became prime minister and thereafter created the executive presidency deeming himself the first executive president.

He was elected president for the first time only in October 1982. Thereafter, he extended his massive parliamentary majority for a further term through what is widely perceived, though not conclusively proved, as a rigged referendum. He purportedly obtained the people’s consent for a further term, without an election, for the incumbent parliament to retain his 1977 majority. It has been argued that the concentration of power in an executive presidency enabled the defeat of the LTTE after a near 30-year civil war but these are imponderables that could forever be debated.

Karu Jayasuriya’s NMSJ is not a political party. It is an influential social movement led by a trusted retired politician who has acquitted himself well in various elected and unelected positions including cabinet minister, mayor of Colombo, ambassador to Germany, business leader and, early in his career, a voluntary military officer. Whether NMSJ has the muscle to get the various presidential candidates who will run later this year to declare, with a time-frame, in their manifestos their stance on abolishing the executive presidency is something that remains to be seen.

The aragalaya demanded “system change.” Although it achieved the ouster of the Rajapaksas from the heights of power, there was no system change. What it created was the paradox of Ranil Wickremesinghe, who led the UNP to a zero seat defeat in August 2020 being first appointed prime minister and then president by a president on the run. RW who returned to the legislature on the UNP’s single national list seat, no doubt, has established more than a semblance of normalcy and hopes to be elected president on the back of this performance. Abolishing the executive presidency is not a part of his present agenda although the subject had been perfunctorily discussed.

The incumbent is busy cobbling a broad alliance on the back of which he hopes to be elected. The principal contenders are not likely to include the abolition of the executive presidency in their manifestos whatever NMSJ requests. The top priority of the electorate will be setting the economy right and easing the cost of living. Other things, most voters are likely to feel, can come later.