Friday 13th September, 2024

The police have launched a probe into a complaint that a former military officer supporting the JVP/NPP threatened the activists of other political parties with reprisal recently. Several persons are said to have reported the alleged incident to the police. A video of the suspect issuing threats is doing the rounds on social media. The JVP/NPP has said the clip has been doctored. Anything is possible in this digital age. The police must get to the bottom of it expeditiously.

If the authenticity of the video at issue can be established, the suspect, who has been identified, has to be severely dealt with, according to the law, as a deterrent for others of his ilk. If it is found to be a deepfake, those who created it must be traced and prosecuted forthwith. The Internet is teeming with digitally manipulated images and videos which mislead the public.

The UK’s worst race riots in decades were incited by online disinformation campaigns, last month. The unfortunate incidents placed Britain on a collision course with Elon Musk, whose X was abused by far-right groups to stoke the flames of racism. Perhaps, nothing is more abused these days than the digital space, where privacy and security are almost nonexistent. Fake news or deepfake can wreak havoc anywhere in the world, especially in the countries where mass hysteria is the norm.

The Election Commission of Sri Lanka, the police, the election monitors, etc., should take up the issue of disinformation circulated via the Internet with social media platform owners, who do not seem to act responsibly.

The JVP is said to have conducted its political events in a peaceful manner since 1994, when it returned to mainstream politics by securing parliamentary representation through the Sri Lanka Progressive Front. It is the only party which is free from the manape (preferential vote) battles that plague other political parties; its candidates put the party before self while their counterparts in other parties subjugate everything to self-interest.

However, it is popularly said in this country that all it takes to spoil a pot of milk is a smidgeon of cow dung. Hence the need for the JVP/NPP as well other political parties to remain vigilant and rein in their unruly supporters.

There have been no serious incidents of election-related violence so far. This is a matter for happiness, but given the extremely high stakes all political parties and their leaders have in the forthcoming presidential election, it is only natural that there is a sense of foreboding among the public. Prudence warrants that all precautions be taken to prevent flare-ups, especially in the post-election period. Sri Lanka is no stranger to political violence, which has even distorted the outcomes of electoral contests such as the presidential and parliamentary polls in the late 1980s and the North Western Provincial Council election in 1999.

One may recall that the 1994 regime change was expected to plunge the country into a bloodbath because the UNP had perpetrated barbaric violence against its rivals, especially the SLFPers after the 1977 general election. Goons led by UNP politicians assaulted and killed SLFP supporters and torched the victims’ houses. The police were ordered to look the other way while the UNP thugs were unleashing hell.

But Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who steered the SLFP-led People’s Alliance (PA) to victory, in 1994, turned all grassroots offices of her alliance into ‘peace committees’ tasked with ensuring the safety of the PA’s political rivals. Her method worked. Her example is worthy of emulation.

All political parties taking part in the ongoing presidential election ought to entrust their community-level branches with the task of ensuring peace in the post-election period. Democracy must be the winner in the forthcoming presidential election regardless of who secures the presidency.

Thursday 12th September, 2024

Leading US presidential candidates, Donald Trump (Republican) and Kamala Harris (Democratic) engaged in a combative live debate on Tuesday. The general consensus is that Harris fared better than Trump, who was seen to be on the defensive. Her experience as a former prosecutor may have stood Harris in good stead when she took on Trump, whose legal woes are legion. Tuesday’s presidential face-off revolved around several key issues, but it is thought to have been light on policy details.

Trump, true to form, made some snide remarks about her ethnicity and political beliefs, and they left a bad taste in many a mouth. He went so far as to call Harris a Marxist. He has sought to capitalise on the Cold War era slogan, “Better dead than red”, which is deeply seated in the American ethos and continues to shape the US policies. However, it is doubtful whether he will succeed in evoking anti-Communist sentiments to influence public opinion, today.

While presidential candidates are facing off in live debates in the US, their Sri Lankan counterparts are debating without debates, so to speak, the best example being the ongoing war of words between President Ranil Wickremesinghe and NPP presidential candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake. They are contending with each other on economic policies the way two armies trade artillery fire; one of them issues a challenge from somewhere and the other responds from a long distance away.

Last Friday (06), President Wickremesinghe, addressing a group of bankers, in Colombo, picked holes in Dissanayake’s election manifesto; claiming that the NPP had pledged to scrap Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), he contended that an export-oriented economy could not be developed without such pacts, and demanded that NPP reveal whether it would adopt export-oriented economic policies. Repeating his claim in Welimada on Sunday (08), the President said he would keep pressing that demand until Dissanayake revealed the NPP’s position. The NPP has accused the President of distorting what is stated in its manifesto.

On Monday, Dissanayake, while speaking at a campaign rally in Anamaduwa hit back at Wickremesinghe, challenging the latter to a public debate. Wickremesinghe at a meeting with a group of business leaders in Kurunegala, on Wednesday, responded to Dissanayake. He said that before debating with him Dissanayake should get Sunil Handunnetti and Harshana Suriyapperuma around the table and sort out what he called discrepancies in their economic policies and reach a consensus among themselves.

Wickremesinghe has also claimed that some policies stated in the SJB’s economic blueprint are not consistent with those in SJB presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa’s election manifesto. Some SJB politicians have sought to counter this argument. Wickremesinghe’s election manifesto is also full of holes, which his rivals have not cared to pick and make public, maybe because one’s actions speak louder than one’s words in an election manifesto.

President Wickremesinghe has offered to organise a virtual discussion with the IMF Chief if Dissanayake and Premadasa agree to a debate on the economy. There is no need for the IMF to be brought into a presidential debate.

As for election manifestos and policies of political parties, a clarification should be sought from the JVP/NPP on the duality of socialism and capitalism it finds itself in. It has not officially abandoned its Revolutionary Policy Declaration (published by Niyamuwa) based on lofty Marxist ideals; the document says in Chapter 3, titled, The Structure of the Economy (pp. 23 and 24): “Foreign capital in every sphere shall be vested in the state without any payment of compensation. Free trade zones shall be abolished. The business undertakings and properties within such zones shall be vested in the state without any payment of compensation … The payment of debts and interest due to imperialist banks and institutions shall be abolished ….” The policy declaration ends with the slogan: ‘Death to imperialism—Liberation to the people; Death to Capitalism—Victory to socialism.” However, it is not unusual for revolutionary outfits to abandon their policies in favour of new strategies that better align with the modern-day politico-economic reality, and the JVP cannot be considered an exception. If so, shouldn’t the JVP, the largest constituent of the NPP, publicly relinquish its original Revolutionary Policy Declaration? It has yet to come out of its Liberal-Marxist duality and establish a coherent, consistent and credible platform.

Let the main presidential candidates be urged to engage in a public debate on their policies and other issues of national importance and thereby pave the way for informed voting. Time is fast running out.

Wednesday 11th September, 2024

JVP/NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has made a revelation. He has said, at a political rally in Thambuttegama, that the JVP had posters printed for Mahinda Rajapaksa’s 2005 presidential election campaign, but Basil Rajapaksa did not reimburse it.

The JVP not only had posters printed for Mahinda but also put them up in 2005. In fact, it was instrumental in ensuring his victory in the 2005 presidential race despite the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s all-out efforts to queer the pitch for him. The SLFP headquarters, which Chandrika kept under her thumb, did not back Mahinda in the presidential contest, and it was the JVP which kept his election campaign going.

Dissanayake in his Thambuttegama speech inveighed against all rival political leaders for corruption and abuse of power. Interestingly, the JVP led Mahinda’s presidential election campaign from the front in spite of various allegations against the Rajapaksas, the most serious one being the misuse of tsunami relief funds. Worse, it helped Mahinda secure the presidency, having made an abortive attempt to prevent him from becoming the Prime Minister in 2004. It wrote to President Kumaratunga, asking her not to elevate Mahinda to the premiership, and even threatened to pull out of her government unless she met its demand; it had 39 MPs in that administration. Chandrika however had to bow to party pressure and appoint Mahinda Prime Minister.

Thus, the JVP, which did not consider Mahinda eligible to be the PM in 2004, enabled him to become the President the following year! But for its steadfast help, the Rajapaksa factor would not have become so dominant in national politics, and perhaps the corrupt deals Dissanayake has blamed on them would not have taken place. Shouldn’t the creator be held responsible for what the creature is accused of? Similarly, a part of the credit for what the Rajapaksas boast of having achieved during Mahinda’s first presidential term, especially the defeat of the LTTE, should go to the JVP.

At the Thambuttegama rally, Dissanayake lashed out at President Ranil Wickremesinghe, holding the latter accountable for the Treasury bond scam carried out in Feb., 2015. His speech must have struck a responsive chord with the public, who are disappointed that the real masterminds behind the Treasury bond rackets have not been brought to justice. That mega scam, however, did not affect the JVP-UNP honeymoon, and the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) headed by JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti made no mention of Wickremesinghe in its final report on the Treasury bond scams!

The second Treasury bond scam was committed in 2016, but the JVP rose in defence of the UNP-led Yahapalana government when President Maithripala Sirisena tried to dislodge it with the help of Mahinda in October 2018. The JVP helped Prime Minister Wickremesinghe retain a parliamentary majority, and therefore there is no way it can absolve itself of the blame for what the Yahapalana government did, especially reckless borrowing and the neglect of national security. Ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said in his book, The Conspiracy, that the total value of Sri Lanka’s outstanding ISBs (International Sovereign Bonds) was USD 5 billion by the end of 2014 with foreign reserves standing at USD 8.2 billion. When the JVP-backed Yahapalana government came to an end, the country’s outstanding ISBs amounted to USD 15.05 billion with foreign reserves worth only USD 7.4 billion remaining. Gotabaya’s claim has gone unchallenged. Likewise, a part of the credit for the Yahapalana government’s good deeds, such as making some progressive laws, should go to the JVP, which backed it through thick and thin. Curiously, the SJB stalwarts who were in the Yahapalana government, savouring power, have woken up to the JVP’s violent past!

Moreover, allegations of corruption, abuse of power and criminal transgressions against President Kumaratunga’s SLFP-led People’s Alliance (PA) government were legion in 2004, but the JVP had no qualms about coalescing with the SLFP to contest that year’s parliamentary election as a constituent of the SLFP-led United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which was the PA in all but name. As the NPP is to the JVP, so was the UPFA to the PA—old wine in a new bottle.

Instances where self-righteous politicians cohabited with the corrupt and subjugated principles to expediency abound in this country. Today, we have pots calling kettles black and vice versa on the political front. Hence the rapid rise of anti-politics.