By Ameer Ali –

Dr. Ameer Ali

The essence of President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Independence Day address to the nation and his policy statement to the parliament could be summarized under four subjects: (a) the country’s economy is in a perilous state, (b) with advice and financial assistance from IMF and friendly nations RW and his cabinet are on the right track to rebuild the economy, (c) everyone must make sacrifices for the sake of the nation and (d) success is certain at the end. But what was left unsaid on both occasions was that people should give time for his economic plan to work and wait with patience without upsetting the prevailing political set up and system. In his calculations therefore, the forthcoming Local Government Elections (LGE) have the potential to create such an upset and hence it should be averted.  But how?

There are two ways to stop LGE. One is to starve the Election Commission of funds and the other is to resort to a more sinister instrument to make LGE a law-and-order issue. 

Financial unaffordability to spend an amount of Rs. 10 billion, an exaggerated figure plucked from the air, was originally put forward by the government as reason to stop the LGE. Once the Election Commissioner came out and said that the expenses could be managed within half that amount and that the money is available, unaffordability argument lost its bite. Yet, when the Commission asked for Rs. 770 million to cover the expenses for the month of February, RW as Minister of Finance, Stabilization and National Policy had instructed the treasury to fund only essential expenses, which excluded election expenditure from that category. In a democracy, elections provide the best opportunity for people to express their approval or disapproval of how a government is performing. RW’s considers that exercise itself as non-essential or unwarranted. His instruction to the treasury implicitly admits that he and his government stand to lose.

Apart from the denial of funds, Peoples’ Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) reported earlier that there had been death threats to officials in the Election Commission and a deliberate campaign to malign the Commission itself. But the Commissioner bravely standing firm to conduct the elections as scheduled. It is in this context that RW has resorted to make LGE a law-and-order problem by bringing in the issue of implementing the controversial 13^th Amendment. 

This issue was dealt with in a previous piece (see, “Economy, 13^th Amendment and System Change”, Colombo Telegraph, 7 Feb. and FT, 10 Feb.) However, it deserves repetition because of certain recent developments. RW knows very well how his immediate predecessor promised the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi in 2020, to implement this amendment and how quickly that promise was reneged on his return to Colombo. This time there seems to be another element that has compelled RW to take up that issue. Apart from satisfying India and showing gratitude to all its economic assistance at this time of need, there is also an international community pressured by the Tamil diaspora that demands a resolution to the Tamil issue. There is a substantial investment potential within the Tamil diaspora that could be harnessed to support RW’s economy rebuilding efforts. Even his predecessor entertained that idea at some stage. The Tamil diaspora organizations with their headquarters in Canada has grown into a power to be reckoned with. Therefore, partly to satisfy India, partly to tap the economic potential of diaspora Tamils and partly to get the TNA on to his side RW promised to implement fully a legislation that is already there in the statute book since 1987. However, there seems to be another sinister motive to bring up this issue in the threatening context of backlash at the LGE, and that motive is to use political Buddhism and its saffron army to do the dirty work for him.            

Political Buddhism or Sinhala Buddhism, and NOT Buddhism as a philosophy and way of life has been a historic destabilizer of peace and tranquility in independent Sri Lanka since 1950s. It has also become the last resort to desperate politicians to win elections. While Buddhism emerged as a blessing to humanity, arrived in this island also as blessing and made the country into a land of peace, prosperity and resplendence, Sinhala or political Buddhism is a 19^th century invention pioneered by a leadership headed by Anagarika Dharmapala and Co. with the intention of driving out from the country not only the colonizers but also all ethnic and religious minorities so that Sri Lanka would become the property of Sinhala Buddhists only. It was not that long ago but in 2020 that one Buddhist monk declared publicly that Sri Lanka belongs only to Sinhala Buddhists and that the minorities are long term tenants. As Tissarani Gunasekera put it aptly and bravely, the country has been lost to Sinhala Buddhism (see GroundViews, 7 Feb 2023). 

RW knows very well that Sinhala Buddhists, brain washed by a caste ridden Sangha and power-hungry Sinhala politicians would never allow the 13^th Amendment to be implemented fully. As expected, the saffron army came to the street and burnt the 13^th Amendment while Sinhala nationalists like Weerasekaras, Wimalawansas have drawn the battle line for a so-called patriotic contest with RW-MR alliance on this issue. To quote Gunasekera again, “So long as Lankan history is defined as an unending struggle to prevent alien races/religions/cultures from taking over this sole home of Sinhalese and sole refuge  of pure Buddhism, the potential for anti-minorities violence (and reactive violence by minorities would remain”. It is this possibility of a convulsion that RW calculates to employ as the last resort to stop the LGE. The 13^th Amendment would neither be implemented nor removed, but would remain as a weapon to be used at convenience to realize the ambitions of sanctimonious politicians.       

The only political party leader who boldly supported the full implementation of the 13^th Amendment was AKD of NPP/JVP, because he knew that RW would not be able to do it. Is that going to cost AKD votes in LGE? Certainly not, because only that party has made a commitment to the nation to change the system that keeps not Buddhism as such but Sinhala political Buddhism as the centre of gravity. The rising generation of youth also see system change as panacea for the ills of mother Lanka. The next three weeks or so would be fateful to the destiny of this nation. 

*Dr. Ameer Ali, Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University, W. Australia