by Harim Peiris

Published in “The Island” and in “GROUNDVIEWS” on 7th July 2024

A few weeks ago, Sri Lankans were not certain if there would be a presidential election in 2024, with an alleged lack of clarity regarding the term of the president and a government drama, of a bill to amend the president’s term. However, the independent Election Commission was very clear and firm and now we do have a presidential election gazetted  and scheduled to be held on September 21 and Sri Lankans are afforded their first real chance to decide their own future or at least elect the leaders who would fashion and form that future, after the momentous and calamitous events of two years ago, the bankrupting of our nation, the collapse of our currency, hyper-inflation and the impoverishment of a whole swathe of our society.

Sri Lankan politics has in the past always been a rather regular two-party affair. This time around, for the very first time, there is a real three-cornered race. The three main contenders provide three very different and distinct alternative ways forward to the Sri Lankan people and it may be useful to clarify the choices they present us with so we can all make an informed and reasoned choice as a sovereign and free people.

Trailing in third place according to all public opinion polls and surveys is President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has headed a government lacking a popular mandate, with the support of the Rajapaksas SLPP parliamentary group, since his predecessor fled in July 2022. His main argument and selling proposition to the country is that his is a safe pair of experienced hands which should be entrusted, the next half decade of national economic management and to consolidate the slow recovery from bankruptcy. Ending the petrol queues, controlling inflation and managing the economic disaster are presented as his singular achievements and the rationale for entrusting him with a popular mandate for five more years at least. President Wickremesinghe has articulated that there is really no need for anything more than a return to the status quo ante. To go back to the path we were so nicely on until the third Rajapaksa (Gotabaya’s) term messed it up. If we get back to the status quo ante, it will serve Sri Lankans and Sri Lanka’s future very well. Accordingly there have been no action in two years to hold provincial council elections or divest loss making state enterprises. Just raise taxes and reduce the returns on the EPF to cover up governance failures. It is very much business as it usually was.

On a more concerning note though, has been his administration’s crack down on civil liberties and democratic space including the Online (Censorship) Bill, a draconian Counter Terrorism Bill no better than its predecessor PTA and of late even more worrying a confrontational and adversarial approach to the apex judiciary, the Supreme Court where his administration has been receiving a string of defeats from a suspension of his controversial appointment of IGP to a suspension of a wind power plant in Mannar to an equally controversial award of Sri Lanka’s online visa system to a foreign company  via an unsolicited proposal. The rule of law requires a government to be subject to constitutional constraints on executive decisions with checks and balances on the executive in particular. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka was scathing in its comments on the Wickremesinghe Administration’s potentially contemptuous response to an interim relief decision in the IGP case. In terms of real politic, the decision by the Rajapaksa led SLPP to field its own candidate and not support President Wickremesinghe would likely significantly weaken his media savvy but politically light weight, non-party independent presidential election campaign from the top two opposition party contenders.

The surprising surge in public support from late last year for the perennially third placed JVP led NPP with a parliamentary group of three and its leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake is in all likelihood based on two factors. The first was real political support for a system change as articulated in the aragalaya protest movement and the general belief especially among younger voters that the JVP offered the best chance for a real change from business as usual in national governance. The second reason was that with the public’s political repudiation of the Rajapaksas and their SLPP, the attraction was for the exact opposite of what the Rajapaksas stood for and represented. The NPP/JVP was seen to best represent what was the anti-thesis of the political establishment’s business as usual. However most analysts agree with what the opinion polls and surveys reveal that the NPP/JVP has peaked in its support and is losing some of its appeal as election day nears and voters focus on not just a clear articulation of the problems faced but also the proposed solutions. The JVP with no experience whatsoever in governance, is high on ideologically driven rhetoric and much lower and lighter on concrete and practical solutions. The exact nature of the change they might bring is also unclear. Equally troubling has been their bloody past in two failed insurrections with little remorse expressed for the political violence they unleased on a democratic society

Straddling these two opposite extremes of Wickremesinghe’s business as usual and the JVP’s system change has been SJB and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, who in a quiet but nonetheless energetic manner has been proposing, real even radical reforms of the Sri Lankan state to bring about the governance and political reforms we so desperately need to heal of our past traumas and man made disasters, to jointly face and fashion a shared future and  a common destiny. Having perhaps the most impressive front bench in the likes of Eran Wickramaratne, Harsha De Silva and Kabir Hashim together with seasoned veterans such as Ranjith Maddumabandara and Tissa Attanayake, the SJB and Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa provides a middle path of real reforms. Although he may not quite articulate it that way, Sajith Premadasa is quite close to the third way popularised by political scientist Anthony Giddens.  The Third Way, also known as Modernised Social Democracy, is a predominantly centrist political position that attempts to reconcile centre right and centre left politics by synthesising a combination of economically liberal and social democratic economic policies along with centre left social policies. The economic ruin caused by the third Rajapaksa term impoverished more than half our nation’s people, who are yet to recover. Sajith Premadasa, his front bench and the SJB understand this and are, at least in theory, committed to addressing it through a social democratic policy framework and real reforms of the state to bring about more accountable governance which minimises corruption.

The people have a clear, three choices in the presidential election ahead. By September 22 late morning we shall know the decision of the sovereign people of Sri Lanka. As an ancient Archbishop of Canterbury Walter Reynolds stated in 1327 Vox populi, vox Dei, the voice of the people, is the voice of God.