By Lionel Bopage –

Dr. Lionel Bopage

The Mandate and Future Developments

The NPP government will be presenting its 2025 budget on February 17. It will clarify the country’s economic direction and what it proposes to do in tackling the harsh austerity program of the IMF. This has not stopped the attempts of the opposition to discredit, disempower and dismantle the government, mostly clutching onto conjecture, rumour and supposition that have been proven to be untrue.

Currently the country appears to be slowly working its way out of bankruptcy; but is still under the control of international financiers. The NPP leadership appears genuine in its commitment for the betterment of life for all inhabitants of the country. They have not asked for extra powers like previous regimes, who promoted measures that prevented transparency and accountability of their operations, given them under the executive presidential system, and other special legalisation.

Many in opposition have asserted, in spite of the facts, that the former president Ranil Wickremasinghe was a proven manager and leader and that the new President and the NPP government are following the path the former president Ranil Wickremasinghe traversed. In fact, Mr Wickremasinghe, and his buddies when in power displayed the opposite, as shown below.

1. A lack of concern about the well-being of Sri Lankans by stubbornly implementing unnegotiated IMF conditioned austerity policies and programs which unduly and adversely affect most of the country’s inhabitants.

2. The use of draconian legislation and unaccountable powers of the executive presidency to repetitively and violently suppress the nonviolent ‘Aragalaya’ movement.

3. Implementing a political agenda for long-term political survival, rather than safeguarding people’s interests relying on a “royal kitchen cabinet” and surrounded by many economic plunderers, which contributed to the continuation of nepotism, cronyism, abuse of power and economic pillage.

4. No measures being adopted to improve efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness of the Sri Lankan public service.

5. Responding to economic challenges by simply undermining human rights and exacerbating people’s plight rather than alleviating their hardships.

6. The desire to privatise or close down 430 state owned enterprises that would have resulted in the loss of about half a million jobs.

7. Shielding the corrupt and enveloping himself with the corrupt and authoritarian individuals of the previous regime without taking practical steps to curtail corruption, wastage, and mismanagement of taxpayer resources.

8. Appointing a team of 79 defeated politicians as his advisors while thousands were flocking to leave the country.

9. Imposing many burdens on working people under the austerity regime, while not touching the many luxuries the ruling elite enjoyed.

10. Avoiding the replacement of luxury vehicles with economically viable ones.

11. Refusing tax benefits to the working people and a wage increase of Rs 10,000.00 to public servants, pledging to do so when it was closer to the election.

12. Proposing to establish 18 more universities while the standards of primary, secondary, and tertiary education were allowed to further deteriorate.

The NPP Presidency in its actions have shown that it substantially differs from the Wickremesinghe presidency. It did not come to power through repression of the people or using violence to overthrow the previous regime. It was not elected to establish socialism nor to launch an anti-capitalist political platform. It advocated a free trade and export-oriented regime open to foreign investment. It will allow private sector expansion in the provision of regulated private health and education services. All the opposition can do is to build a scare campaign against the NPP government as they did prior to elections and during the 1983 Black July pogrom.

The NPP is not the JVP, a cadre-based party. It is a centre left coalition of many progressives. They have pledged to develop the country, eradicating corruption, and enhancing democracy with transparency and accountability. This reflects the desire of the electorate and the Aragalaya movement which desired a ‘systemic’ change, not a revolutionary transformation of the economy from capitalism to socialism. This is exemplified by the fact that the NPP is not walking away from the International Monetary Fund’s austerity program.

The NPP agenda is limited to revisiting the IMF’s debt sustainability assessment that engendered the strict austerity measures. The new government expects to achieve what it can under the window opened by renegotiating a fairer financial bailout. For example, reducing the tax burden on the poor, and continuing public ownership of some state-owned-enterprises, etc. The government is also aspiring to rationalize government expenditure, increase export revenue, reduce import expenditure, and increase domestic industrial and agricultural production. If successful, it will pave the way for achieving fiscal consolidation.

This is a difficult undertaking, compounded by the fact that the decision-making processes in place are not open to scrutiny, thus lacking transparency and accountability. Furthermore, some in the bureaucracy are resorting to the same old diversionary deceptive strategies. For example, instead of repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), they are talking about enacting new counterterrorism legislation such as the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), as proposed by the previous regimes. The new legislation may provide even wider powers to supress dissent and hide their extra judicial actions. In addition, many discriminatory policies and exclusion of minorities are still on the books. Nevertheless, there appears a positive and relaxing trend towards betterment of the situation.

The Sri Lankan military continues to occupy land in the North and the East that formerly belonged to Tamil and Muslim communities. In trying to circumvent international pressure on the regime concerning human rights violations during the days of the armed conflict, a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission has been established, but its potential to enact meaningful change remains still doubtful. Lasting reform and reconciliation is not feasible till these repressive measures and chauvinist, discriminatory and exclusive mindsets are tackled in an inclusive participatory manner.

Conclusion

The future of the country will depend on the way people comprehend the current socio-economic and political context. Such understanding by people will depend on to what extent the government will consult, include, and liaise with the plurality of the country’s populace. It is this plural electorate that brought the NPP to power. They expect that the new government will work towards institutionalising a people oriented political culture that is free of corruption, wastage, and mismanagement. They also expect transparency and accountability in the government’s decision-making processes and other governmental transactions. They also expect an end to the impunity many politicians and bureaucrats continue to enjoy.

The new President and the NPP represent a complete breakaway from the way elections were used to be held and how parties maintained their power on behalf of their families and cronies. The 2024 election campaign was the most peaceful one held so far. However, to their credit, leading political parties did not raise ethnic, linguistic, and faith-based issues during their election campaigns. The pledges the President and the NPP made during the election campaign that the PTA will be repealed, and Tamil political prisoners and the private lands forcibly occupied during the war will be released are yet to materialise.

However, several recent statements attributed to some Cabinet Ministers have raised concerns about those pledges whether they are trying to back track on them. They have alleged to have stated that there are no political prisoners, and the PTA will be amended to adopt the UK and South Africa standards. Obviously, those advocating for and defending human rights are concerned.

The NPP government also appears to have adopted a position that the reforming of specific laws associated with Muslim marriage etc. is made conditional to the Muslim community achieving consensus on such matters. Isn’t it an acceptance of the sine qua non nature of such issues? Our sincere hope is that it is not. If it is, then it will be a kind of a repetition of what happened in 1970, during the SLFP led LSSP, CP coalition when they threw out their election manifesto out of the window with tragic consequences to the people of Lanka and the viability of the left. The NPP needs to be clear on its support of its own manifesto that they took to the electorate.

Most of the people remain hopeful that the new government will stick to what they pledged during their election campaigns. The major issue the NPP needs to tackle is to relax some aspects of the IMF austerity program that would adversely affect the lives and living standards of the working people. At the same time, the government needs to assure its economic strategy will contribute to curtailing expenditure so as not to spend more than it earns. If not, the government will following the same old model that relies on continually borrowing to bridge the income expenditure gap.

What gives the electorate hope for a better future is the undeniable fact that the government is doing its best to achieve the social-democratic program that it pledged during the election campaign. This program is achievable within a democratic framework based on the tenets of good governance. The government will have to increase the tradable investment and its tax revenue. The enormous trade gap needs to be curtailed. Pricing of services need to be managed by drastically cutting down corruption, wastage, and mismanagement of resources, which previous government abysmally failed to do.

On this occasion of the 77th anniversary of independence, let us wish the NPP government the best and encourage it with hope in our collective hearts that it will achieve its targets within a democratic framework.