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Editorial

Confusion worse confounded

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Saturday 23rd October, 2021

Sri Lanka is like a mental hospital under an air raid, with doctors and patients running helter-skelter. Those who came to power, flaunting their medals, epaulettes, brass buttons and accoutrements, and promising to bring order out of chaos are all at sea. They seem to have brought chaos out of order. They signal left and turn right, and make numerous U-turns. The Sports Minister goes overseas to attend events of religious significance; the Trade Minister rushes to the airport to receive consignments of fertiliser while the prices of comestibles and other essentials are skyrocketing; the Agriculture Minister is blaming the Opposition for the current agricultural problems, and the Minister of Power is trying to set up zoos instead of power plants. Everyone at the levers of power seems to have got his wires crossed. Scaremongers are having a field day confounding as they do confusion prevailing in the country; with each passing day, they work people up into a frenzy via social media,

People are running around stocking up on essentials. Fuel pumps have run dry due to panic buying, and refilling stations hoarding stocks in anticipation of price hikes. The government issues official statements denying reports of scarcities, but nobody buys into them.

Farmers are protesting against a crippling fertiliser shortage. The Opposition is squawking in Parliament without revealing how they would handle the fertiliser issue if they were in power. Having caused widespread crop losses, the government now claims its agrochemical ban was based on wrong advice. Government politicians who do not know the periodic table from the dining table are giving chemistry lessons to senior university dons! The use of agrochemicals, no doubt, has to be drastically reduced, and organic farming encouraged, but it must be done gradually to avoid shocks.

The present situation has come about owing to a host of colossal blunders the incumbent dispensation had made on all fronts. Immediately after the last presidential election (2019), the government granted tax relief to the wealthy at the expense of the state coffers, and threw money around by way of cash handouts for the people during the first lockdown so as to muster votes to win the general election. Even those who did not need financial assistance were given it for political reasons. Rackets such as the sugar tax scam caused staggering losses to the state. Corruption remains rampant, and those who were in the political wilderness for five years are now making up for lost time. Money printing, which the current administration considers a panacea, has led to huge price increases, which are not reflected in the official inflation rate as figures are massaged.

The first lockdown imposed last year to curb the spread of the pandemic was unnecessarily extended at a massive economic cost, and the government did not care to enforce the quarantine laws properly in the run-up to the last general election (2020) and afterwards. Infection clusters emerged, necessitating travel restrictions, as a result. Health experts’ call for a lockdown during the traditional New Year season in April went unheeded, and the result was an explosive spread of Covid-19 as well as a sharp rise in fatalities. A stitch in time would have saved nine, and many lives, and helped revive tourism, bringing in the much-needed forex. Finally, there was another protracted lockdown, and the country is now gripped by an unprecedented foreign currency crunch, which has compelled the government to raise dollars at the expense of vital state assets.

Thankfully, the ongoing vaccination drive and the costly lockdown have worked, and the country is open again; tourism is showing signs of recovery, we are told. But public health experts are warning of another wave of infections come December because the public is behaving irresponsibly. Religious places are becoming crowded again, and so are buses; health guidelines are not followed at social gatherings. The situation is expected to take a turn for the worse after schools fully reopen. If what is feared comes to pass—absit omen—there will have to be another lockdown, which must be avoided at any cost.

The government, in its wisdom, is trying to introduce a new Constitution and hold the Provincial Council polls. It must get its priorities right. It has to sort out the fertiliser issue urgently to prevent a drop in the national agricultural output. Health regulations and quarantine laws must be strictly enforced to prevent another wave of Covid-19 while wasteful expenditure is curtailed.



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Editorial

Elections in the U.S. and SL

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On Tuesday, Nov. 5, Americans will vote for a new president at an election that most observers and commentators agree is destined to be as consequential, if not even more so, as only two other elections in the chequered history of the United States of America. Americans will either choose to continue with the Great Experiment of democracy envisaged by the Founding Fathers over two centuries ago; or they will change course and adopt an authoritarian government on the model of other authoritarian nations in the world, like Russia.

The U.S. constitution decrees that a presidential election be held once every four years on the first Tuesday following a Monday in November. This is to ensure that the Polling Day does not interfere with Sunday worship and also that it does not fall on Nov. 1, also for a religious reason. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has no ironclad date for holding elections, both presidential and parliamentary, and incumbents have considerable flexibility of when elections will be called. This is often used for their own advantage.

We in Sri Lanka will vote on Nov. 14 to elect our 17th Parliament which will convene on Nov. 21, completing two national elections to choose an executive president and a new parliament within a few weeks of each other. We voted in a new president as recently as Sept. 21. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had during his campaign pledged that his first executive action, if elected, would be to dissolve the then parliament. This, of course was a sine qua non – an essential or indispensable requirement – as the NPP/JVP had only three seats in the last parliament and is now governing the country with the world’s smallest cabinet of just three ministers.

It is unlikely that the result of the U.S. election will influence voters here. There has been little or no mention of that subject in ongoing campaign rhetoric although the U.S. election has been extensively reported and commented upon both here and the world-over. Most Lankans, we believe, are convinced that the election of Donald Trump in what appears to be a very tight race in the “swing states,” would be an unmitigated disaster not only for America but also the wider world. There have been five examples – two recently – at U.S. presidential elections where the winner literally lost. The recent examples are 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote and lost to George. W. Bush in the Electoral College. Then in 2016 Hillary Clinton who won the popular vote lost to Trump..

The 2024 U.S. election is being fought on a variety of issues, with immigration and reproductive freedom taking center stage. The economy used to be a major issue, but recent reports of a vast improvement in the economy consequent to the policies of the Biden administration – Bidenomics – has had the effect of a dramatic reduction in inflation, which now stands at 2.2%, down from 9% in 2022. Glowing reports about the continuing success of the economy, which The Economist recently headlined as “The envy of the world” has largely silenced Republican critics. As has the prediction of a majority of economists that Trump’s nebulous economic plan, based mainly on increased tariffs on imports, will result in higher prices and recession.

Convicted felon Trump keeps hammering on about the catastrophe of an open Southern border, with gross exaggerations about criminals, murderers, rapists and people who bring drugs, crossing the border in their millions – “vermin who are poisoning the blood of the people”. He is creating hatred and fear of immigrants in a land of immigrants, continuing a strategy which won him the presidency in 2016.

However, the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Republican backed US Supreme Court, will likely play a major role in the final outcome of the election. Women’s reproductive rights had been guaranteed by the Supreme Court judgment of Roe v. Wade, since 1973. The Court had ruled that that abortion was a decision to be made by the pregnant woman, her physician, her parents (in the case of a minor) and her God. After 50 years, Donald Trump appointed, three decisively pro-life judges to the Supreme Court, which now has a 6/3 Republican majority, which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion.

Women, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, form the majority (52%) of the electorate. They are overwhelmingly in favor of the re-instatement of Roe v. Wade. Vice-President Harris as vowed to sign this into law as one of her first actions on election as president. The fact that women usually exercise their right to vote in greater numbers than men may just swing an extremely close, most consequential election in favor of Vice-President Harris and the Democrats.

Here in Sri Lanka we have President AKD calling on the electorate to give the NPP/JVP a parliamentary majority to ensure smooth government with a single party controlling both the presidency and the legislature. He wants the voter who crowned him executive president to do a “satyagraha” to give him the parliamentary majority as well. Sajith Premadasa seeks the majority pledging to work with the president on everything good it attempts while Ranil Wickremesinghe lectures that politicians with experience must be elected MPs. He is eloquently silent on why he, the country’s most experienced politician, does not offer himself for election. He has even ruled out a National List entry to parliament for himself like he did in 2020 when the UNP won zero seats and scraped a single National List slot. But he eventually took that place after months of foot dragging. The rest is history.

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Editorial

Political cost of sobering reality

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Saturday 2nd November, 2024

The latest fuel price revision has landed the JVP/NPP government in an unenviable position, with only 12 days to go before the next general election, where the ruling alliance’s stakes are extremely high. Unless the NPP succeeds in obtaining a working majority in Parliament, newly-elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will run the risk of being reduced to a mere figurehead, to all intents and purposes.

Only the prices of 95 Octane petrol and Super Diesel have been reduced much to the disappointment of the ordinary people, who mostly use 92 Octane petrol and Auto Diesel. The government would not have found itself in this situation but for its much-advertised election pledge to deep-six the fuel pricing formula and slash the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene. It would have been prudent for the JVP/NPP to leave all fuel prices unrevised at this juncture.

Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Vijitha Herath has claimed that the so-called pricing formula is not the sole basis on which fuel prices are revised monthly. If so, why hasn’t the government reduced the prices of the widely used fuel types? The fuel price revision at issue may make economic sense because the cost reflective pricing helps reduce state expenditure, but it has come at a political cost to the NPP, which raised the people’s expectations by offering to reduce taxes on fuel, eliminate corruption in the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and slash the prices of petrol and diesel immediately after capturing power. Its rhetoric led most people to believe that diesel and petrol would be available again at the pre-crisis prices.

Three-wheeler drivers, who use 92 Octane petrol, are the most vociferous critics of how the government is handling fuel prices. It was not out of altruism that the trishaw fraternity campaigned hard for JVP/NPP leader Dissanayake in the presidential race. They obviously expected economic benefits in return under an NPP government.

President Dissanayake never misses an opportunity to declare that he cannot perform miracles. But he made himself out to be a miracle man when he was an Opposition MP. He would wax eloquent in Parliament, telling successive governments how to slash taxes and tariffs, grant relief to the public and lower the cost of living. Therefore, it is only natural that the people expect miracles under his presidency. The JVP-led trade unions staged protests and even strikes, demanding pay hikes, and the JVP/NPP sought to rubbish the then rulers’ claim that salary increases could be granted only through the annual Budgets. The JVP/NPP has now made an about-turn; it says it will consider the state sector pay hikes when the next Budget is presented.

It is not being argued that the NPP government should reduce fuel prices and increase the public sector salaries haphazardly at the expense of the economy. The Opposition should refrain from trying to recover lost ground by pressuring the government to do things that would hurt the economy. The government is right in adhering to the cost-reflective fuel pricing and insisting that pay hikes cannot be granted at this juncture. Even if Ranil Wickremesinghe had won the September presidential election, he would not have been able to do what he is now asking the NPP government to do.

The JVP/NPP leaders must be regretting the many promises they made to win the presidential election. The biggest challenge before the government, which has come to terms with the sobering economic reality, is to make the public, whose expectations it elevated beyond measure, to do likewise and exercise patience. Unfortunately for the JVP/NPP, patience is not a virtue associated with Sri Lankans, who want election promises to be fulfilled the way hoppers are baked.

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Editorial

Politics, garbage and pillow fights

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Friday 1st November, 2024

The ongoing US presidential race has got down and dirty so much so that trash and garbage trucks have been dragged into the propaganda war between the Republicans and the Democrats. The two sides are attacking each other, according to Rafferty’s rules. On Sunday, a comedian who spoke at a Republican rally happened to remark that US territory of Puerto Rico was a ‘floating island of garbage’ and unwittingly provided grist to the propaganda mill of the Democrats.

But two days later, President Joe Biden, true to form, made a gaffe; he said Trump supporters were garbage, and the Republicans seized on it to launch a massive counterattack, with Donald Trump going to the extent of travelling in the cabin of a garbage truck to a campaign rally, and condemning the Democrats, who provided the Republicans with a new line of attack and a rallying point.

Gimmicks and rhetoric have come to dominate the US presidential contest, and the garbage drama, as it were, has eclipsed many vital issues, especially the staggering human cost of brutal Israeli attacks on Gaza, and the US complicity in the humanitarian tragedy. It is also doubtful whether Trump and his main rival, Kamala Harris (D), have paid much attention to the war between Russia and NATO being fought in Ukraine. Perhaps, why they are not intensely focused on the economy is understandable.

The US economy is reportedly in good shape; the growth rate is satisfactory and the unemployment rate is low. This may be the reason why the presidential candidates have chosen to flog other issues hard, but according to some opinion survey results, about 80% of the American voters prioritise the economy over everything else, and they may not be happy with the Republican and Democratic campaigns.

Whether Trump’s garbage truck gimmick will yield the desired result or whether the US public will relegate him to the dumping chamber of that vehicle in the upcoming presidential election remains to be seen. The possibility of Harris facing a similar fate cannot also be ruled out, given the anti-incumbency sentiments, Biden’s endless gaffes, Democratic bungling and the intensity of the Republican propaganda onslaught.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, which is going to the polls in less than two weeks to elect a new Parliament, the focus of the candidates and their leaders has shifted from the ailing economy to other issues; polemics, rhetoric and mudslinging have taken precedence over logical reasoning. In the run-up to the September presidential election, all parties vied with each other to make the highest number of promises, such as pay hikes, tax reductions, subsidies and anti-corruption campaigns in a bid to garner votes; now, they are making even more promises which, if implemented by any chance, would send the economy into a tailspin again.

A ding-dong between former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and some NPP leaders, especially President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, has overshadowed the key issues that political leaders should address ahead of a general election. Wickremesinghe keeps teasing the NPP bigwigs by claiming that he is a former President without a majority and Dissanayake is an incumbent President without a majority, and offering to give lessons to the PM on the Constitution. The NPP has turned on Wickremesinghe, but one wonders whether their battles are like scripted wrestling matches; they look more like pillow fights than typical vicious attacks that Sri Lankan politicians are notorious for.

The NPP and the UNP cannot be so hostile towards each other, for it was a split caused by Wickremesinghe in the anti-NPP vote, in the recently-concluded presidential contest, that enabled Dissanayake to secure the presidency. Following its victory in the presidential race, the NPP may have thought that the upcoming parliamentary election would be a walk in the park, but it has become a trudge through a marsh, so to speak. The current battle between the UNP-backed New Democratic Front and the SJB for anti-government votes will also benefit the NPP, which may be able to obtain bonus seats by winning electoral districts.

It is one’s fervent hope that whatever the outcome of the upcoming general election may be, all political dregs in the fray will be given a garbage truck ride to the landfill of politics, where they belong.

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