Saturday 19th July, 2025

US President Donald Trump is known for his about-turns, which are legion. When he declared what he described as reciprocal tariffs, he said his decision was final, and it was his way or highway. But he changed his mind subsequently, and his suo motu downward tariff revision has encouraged many countries like Sri Lanka to seek further tariff reductions. A few more rounds of talks between Sri Lanka and the US on tariffs are on the cards.

While a Sri Lankan delegation is preparing for a hard bargain, former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that instead of promising to buy Coca-Cola or gas in return for a US tariff reduction, Sri Lanka should leverage the fact that tariff hikes by the US, which is a member of the Official Creditor Committee (OCC), supporting the IMF bailout package, will only make it even more difficult for Sri Lanka to repay its debt.

The US tariff increases could not have come at a worse time for Sri Lanka, which is struggling to emerge from its worst-ever economic crisis. They are ‘like evil-causing Saturn falling into a beggar’s bowl’, as a popular saying goes in this country.

However, Sri Lanka has only itself to blame for its predicament, which is far worse than those of most other nations affected by the US tariff hikes. If it had diversified its exports and export destinations over the years, while properly managing its foreign currency reserves, it would have been able to cushion the US tariff blow to a considerable extent at least in the short term.

Its failure to do so has bolstered the ruling NPP’s argument that none of its predecessors got macroeconomic fundamentals right. One may recall that the JVP ridiculed President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s garment factory programme by claiming that it would make the Sri Lankan women stitch jangi (underwear) for suddhis (white women) and even coined slogans such as kollanta pavement, kellanta garment (pavements for boys and garment factories for girls) to whip up ani-government sentiments in the 1980s. Ironically, the JVP-led NPP has had to protect the garment industry, which will be the worst affected by the US tariff increases. Its erstwhile comrades in the Frontline Socialist Party, etc., are now accusing it of following Ranil’s economic policies.

Stressing that Sri Lanka’s economy will not survive if the US tariffs remain as high as 30%, Wickremesinghe has argued that having underwritten IMF-mandated debt restructuring, the US should help Sri Lanka. His argument is logical, and one cannot but agree with him. However, the problem is that Trump is impervious to reasoning and acts whimsically. Diplomacy as well as pragmatism is not one of Trump’s traits; he even tears into visiting foreign dignitaries at the White House if they express views that run counter to his.

All tariff reductions will eventually have to be sanctioned by Trump, and he is no respecter of agreements and obligations. He has turned free trade on its head, opted for isolationist policies, and even antagonised traditional US allies in Europe and other regions. There’s the rub. What Wickremesinghe has suggested by way of having US tariffs reduced is apparently a long shot but is well worth trying.

Trump’s tariffs are bound to generate a blowback effect that significantly harms US industries due to supply chain disruptions, the reconfiguration of costs and the resultant losses or reduced profit margins. Trump may be compelled to respond to domestic pressure, and it is being speculated that there may be another round of tariff reductions. However, there is no guarantee that he will give in to pressure, domestic or foreign. Sri Lanka and other developing countries struggling to keep their economies afloat will be really lucky if moral suasion has the desired effect on Trump.

Friday 18th July, 2025

Never a dull day in Sri Lanka! Hardly a day passes without some controversy or another making headlines and even leading to protests. Issues crop up at such a rapid pace that it is not possible to keep track of them, much less understand them.

The latest controversy is about the education sector, which is no stranger to protests and strikes. A government decision to introduce education reforms has caused quite a stir, with school teachers, their trade unions and university dons letting out howls of protests. The protesters are hauling Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, who is also the Minister of Education, and the Education Ministry officials over the coals for what they describe as a move, inter alia, to sideline history as a school subject. The reforms, in their opinion, are ill-conceived. The Premier has sought to clear the air, but her voice has been drowned in the din of angry protests.

There has been no extensive debate on the proposed education reforms, which have entered the public domain in dribs and drabs, and therefore look ad hoc. The Education Ministry may have striven to make them known to the public, but its efforts do not seem to have yielded the desired results. There is a need for a wider public discussion on the issue.

Prime Minister Dr. Amarasuriya has experience as a seasoned campaigner for education reforms and protecting free education. She actively participated in protest marches in defence of free education under previous governments, demanding more funds for the education sector and better salaries for university teachers, when she was in the groves of academe. Ironically, most of the critics of her education reform package, as it were, are her former university colleagues, who strongly backed the NPP, enabling it to gain a great deal of legitimacy and win elections impressively. Today, some of them are accusing her of following in the footsteps of Ranil Wickremesinghe, who once got into hot water as a Minister of Education over a controversial White Paper. So, the task before the Prime Minister is to sell her education reforms to her former colleagues and secure their support for her mission. She should be able to engage them as well as other stakeholders including school teachers, their trade unions, students, professional associations, and opinion leaders in discussions on the reform package in question.

The incumbent government has a stock excuse for its failure to achieve progress in key sectors; it says it has been in power only for a few months, and Rome was not built in a day. This argument is not wholly untenable in that a government cannot perform miracles, but the question is how the NPP administration has managed to handle a complex, formidable task like introducing education reforms, albeit not far-reaching, so quickly. Its selective efficiency is amazing.

The NPP government declared in its election manifestos its intention to introduce education reforms, which are in fact long overdue. So, it is duty bound to fulfil that pledge. One of the main criticisms of Sri Lanka’s education system is that it has failed to keep pace with the rapidly changing world and placed excessive emphasis on examinations, thereby taking the fun out of learning. Prime Minister Dr. Amarasuriya was heard saying, at a public function, the other day, that it was difficult to make some students attend school regularly.

However, reforming an education system is an extremely complex task that must be handled cautiously however urgent it may be. There are various schools of thought about education reforms besides global trends which keep changing, with various new theories being expounded about education and its goals. Basically, the purpose of an education system is not solely to produce skilled workers for industries to achieve economic development and bring down unemployment rate but nurture citizens who are intellectually well-rounded, civically informed and engaged, adaptable in employment, equipped to face present and future challenges and capable of contributing to national progress.

Some of the key components of a strategy to bring about reforms in any key sector successfully are engaging stakeholders and aligning political and institutional support for them. Those who have undertaken the unenviable task of reforming Sri Lanka’s education system, which is crying out for change, should heed the oxymoronic, classical adage—Festina lente (‘make haste slowly’).

The best course of action available to the government, in our opinion, is to put its education reforms on hold, and initiate a comprehensive discussion with the key stakeholders who claim that their views have not been ascertained.

Thursday 17th July, 2025

The Court of Appeal (CA) has dismissed a petition, in limine, which sought an injunction to prevent Western Province Local Government Commissioner Sarangika Jayasundara from conducting elections by secret ballot to the posts of chairman and vice chairman of the Seethawaka Pradeshiya Sabha.

The CA decision is based on the existing election laws that provide for the Local Government Commissioners’ discretion in conducting elections to the posts of chairpersons/mayors and deputy chairpersons/deputy mayors of the hung local councils. The NPP lost no time in welcoming the CA decision.

In a country like Sri Lanka, there should be no legal provision for the discretion of public officials where elections to local council heads are concerned, for the government in power exerts pressure on state employees to do its bidding to further its political interests, or some public officials sell their souls to politicians.

The existing laws should be amended to make open votes mandatory in elections to top posts in all political institutions. Preferably, they should be roll-call votes or show of hands. The people have a right to know how their elected representatives vote in view of very serious allegations of bribery and corruption against the MPs, provincial councillors and local government members. Quite a few newly-elected Opposition local councillors are accused of having taken bribes to vote against their own parties. Secret ballots have stood these elements in good stead. No room should be left for secrecy in elections to top posts in the local councils.

One may recall that in 2007, following an abortive attempt by the then UNP-led Opposition to defeat Budget 2008 presented by the Mahinda Rajapaksa government at the height of the Eelam War IV, Dullas Alahapperuma, who was a minister at the time, disclosed, at a media briefing, that some MPs of the ruling UPFA had taken bribes to vote against the budget, as part of a conspiracy to topple the government and derail the war; they had been found in five-star hotels with foreign prostitutes, Alahapperuma said, claiming that it had been quite a battle to prevent them from doing what they had taken bribes for. The Rajapaksa government managed to win the budget vote. Alahapperuma stopped short of revealing how that task had been accomplished, but there is reason to believe that the Rajapaksas outbribed their opponents.

The ongoing dispute over secret ballots in hung local councils has bolstered arguments for amending the local government election laws, which are riddled with flaws. Ambiguities in laws, especially vague wording, conflicting rules and discretionary enforcement, breeds public distrust and disillusionment and undermines the legitimacy of the electoral process. A set of ministerial guidelines prepared to dispel confusion in respect of elections to the posts of heads and deputy heads of hung local councils has been deep-sixed, to all intents and purposes, allowing state officials to do as they please. This is not a healthy state of affairs, and the LG laws must be rid of flaws that successive governments have exploited to further their interests with the help of pliant state officials.

While on the subject of public officials’ discretion regarding the election of heads and deputy heads in no-majority local councils, there is a far more serious issue that has gone unaddressed all these years—discretion given to the leaders of political parties to manipulate the National List (NL). The Constitution and the Parliamentary Elections Act provide for undermining the people’s franchise where the NL is concerned! As we have pointed out in previous editorial comments, Article 99A of the Constitution allows ‘the persons whose names are included in the lists submitted to the Commissioner of Elections … or in any nomination paper submitted in respect of any electoral district by political parties or independent groups at that election’ to be appointed to Parliament via the NL. But in 1988, the then UNP government introduced Section 64 (5) of the Parliament Election Act, inter alia, as an urgent Bill, eroding the essence of the constitutional provisions pertaining to the NL appointments. It has now been revealed that in 1988, the J. R. Jayewardene government surreptitiously inserted a section into the Parliamentary Elections Act by having an amendment Bill changed, after its ratification, to allow political party leaders to engineer NL vacancies and appoint persons of their choice to Parliament. This provision has made a mockery of Article 99 (A) and Article 101 (H) of the Constitution. Moreover, in 2017, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government smuggled a slew of sections into the Provincial Council Elections (Amendment) Bill at the committee stage to postpone the provincial council elections indefinitely though Article 78 of the Constitution says ‘any amendment proposed to a Bill in Parliament shall not deviate from the merits and principles of such Bill’. Interestingly, all political parties—the UNP, the SLFP-led UPFA including its pro-Mahinda Rajapaksa faction called the Joint Opposition, the JVP, the SLMC and the TNA unflinchingly backed that rotten Bill, helping postpone the PC polls indefinitely. (The TNA is now demanding that the PC polls be held expeditiously!) No legal remedy is currently available because laws cannot be challenged in courts after their enactment. Hence the need for a constitutional amendment to enable post-enactment judicial review of legislation.

Bad laws not only make the public lose trust in the legal process but also give a turbo boost to anti-politics, which is on the rise.