EDITORIAL

A Nation At The Crossroads

Old hands among our readers may recall how, in years gone by, dissolution of parliament precipitated immediate rejoicing, dancing on the streets, firecrackers and all. Politicians of the opposite party would spit on their hands and prepare for the mˆl‚e to come, and the public, if faced with an unpopular government, would gleefully prepare to mark a cross against the symbol of the other side.

True, the present dissolution came as no surprise to anyone. After all, Chandrika Kumaratunga had sworn she would not dissolve, which, to a public that knows her as the Mother Of All Liars, was good enough as a sure sign that she would. Even Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose childlike trust in the President's bona fides is touching, was only mildly surprised. Nevertheless, dancers on the streets have been conspicuous by their absence.

With polls just six weeks away, Kumaratunga's anticlimactic and self-serving dissolution has resulted in parties of all complexions leaving no stone unturned in a search for issues. Kumaratunga and her JVP allies are already, like the donkeys of yore, bound together but each pulling towards its own bundle of hay, off at cross purposes. The JVP says it wants to arrest and try Pirapaharan while Kumaratunga wants to negotiate with him. For his part, the Tiger king says he wants nothing to do with either of them.

Then there is the economy. Kumaratunga says she will bring down the cost of living, passing over for the nonce the fact that it was she who succeeded in doubling it in just five years through halving the value of the rupee - to say nothing of the stock market crash, the exhaustion of foreign exchange reserves and the drastic cuts in social services to fund the war she fought so unsuccessfully whilst of course building a multi-million dollar Presidential Palace for her in Battaramulla. Madam Debacle, we knew her as, remember? Now she wants to ladle out a bit more of the same, and the serfs - us the electors - are supposed to lap it up like the peasant tenants of her country seat at Horagolla.

What is Kumaratunga going to do different? Will she no longer summon tender boards to President's House and order them to award tenders to her favourites? Will she desist from doling out any more special favours to her pal, Ronnie Peiris? The man was just the previous week back in Colombo. Will she cease to utter lie after lie, whether about her fantasy sojourn at the Sorbonne or about her fictitious PhD in economics? Going by her recent form, not likely. If perchance the JVP-SLFP alliance were to emerge victorious on April 3, we can expect more - much more - of the same.

And worse. The JVP are straining at the leash to take over the social services ministries. Their strategy is simple: increase wages, dole out the largesse, and become the good guys. Who cares where the money comes from? Then, when the government is bankrupt, go for the kill. Two years is all there is, and two years is all they need to fool a lot of the people all of the time.

As if that were not enough, we are now faced with the prospect of having a parliament full of yellow robes, for the Ayatollahs have joined the fray. Gautama Buddha gave up his principality to follow the ascetic dictates of Buddhism, and in sunny Sri Lanka, his disciples are just about to do the reverse due to what they see as the hypocrisy practised by 'pseudo nationalists' such as the JVP.

And so we come a full circle to the UNF, evidently the only party that still espouses secular liberalism to any degree. What has Ranil Wickremesinghe to offer? Only more of the same: more peace, more tolerance, more economic growth, more patience, more foreign aid. But a fat lot of good all that is to a people whose stomachs are empty and who would like someone else to fill it for them.

Having held his peace since Kumaratunga's November 4 palace coup, last week the Prime Minister for the first time confided in the people his version of events. Calm and rational to a fault, he freely admitted that members of his government had gone astray, apologised for the errors of their ways and promised, if re-elected, not to repeat the same mistakes. This is something of a novelty in Sri Lankan politics for Wickremesinghe's opponents have done far worse and are far less inclined to confess their sins.

Kumaratunga has lied as if lies were going out of fashion, and committed countless other offences against common morality, but never would she bring herself to seek forgiveness. A Bandaranaike, she. For their part, the JVP have sadistically slaughtered tens of thousands and shed blood in the Holy of Holies of Buddhism: no sign of any apology from them either, other than a very general statement from Somawansa Amarasinghe. Congratulations then to Wickremesinghe for his courage and humility to admit his faults.

Admitting one's faults and correcting them, however, are two different things. While the public welcomes unreservedly the Prime Minister's candour and manifest goodwill, he faces the challenge now of convincing the people that he will change his style of governance. Wickremesinghe is not a willing leader, and certainly not a street fighter. However, given that the President is an outright bully, not a few people are frustrated by his unwillingness to take her on.

After all, that is what leadership is about: championing the cause of one's electors. When he returned to Sri Lanka on November 9, it was in Wickremesinghe's power to lead the million people who turned out to welcome him to a siege of President's House, using people's power, as was so effectively done in similar circumstances in the Philippines and Indonesia, to get the President to back down. Instead, he withdrew to Temple Trees and tried to start negotiations, little realising that you cannot negotiate with a habitual bully like Kumaratunga. She knows only one language: that of a solid boot connecting with her derriŠre, preferably with a goodish bit of follow-through.

And it is not just the President that Wickremesinghe has failed to control, it is also his ministers. A good many of them have engaged in blatant corruption. No more, we grant than the PA ministers who went before them, but disgraceful nevertheless. Even as one instance after another has been brought to the Prime Minister's notice, he has turned a blind eye evidently fearful that the loss of a single thief would deprive him of his parliamentary majority.

What Wickremesinghe failed to recognise is that had he booted one corrupt minister out, the others would swiftly have fallen in line. By failing to act against corrupt ministers, while he himself stayed with his hands squeaky clean, his government has been fatally tainted. This he must resolve never to let happen again, if the public do indeed re-elect his party come April 2. He simply cannot refuse, as he did just weeks after his government was sworn in in December 2001, to be the class monitor. That duty just happens to go with the job.

Wickremesinghe's faith in the Sri Lankan people, while touching, is also perhaps excessive. He has a duty to counter the lies and the false propaganda that are endlessly trumpeted by the state media. He cannot leave it just to the good judgement of the people to believe only what is true, for a lie told oft enough assumes every attribute of the truth. There is a case to be made to the people of Sri Lanka, and a good one too, in defence of what Wickremesinghe believes. It is up to him to articulate that case, not leaving it to the imagination of the electorate. After all, if one does not lead, how can others follow?