Editorial

Runaway Train

The loyal readers of The Sunday Leader could be forgiven for collectively drawing in their breath and casting a censorious glance at Ye Ed, at having to read through yet another tirade of editorial censure directed at both government and opposition. As Sri Lankans, the fact is we have all become a pretty disgruntled lot, and there is precious little the government or, for that matter, their loyal opposition could do - short of drowning themselves in the Beira Lake - that will gruntle us.

Whenever lots are drawn, it is a pathetic irony that Sunny Sri Lanka must draw the short one. Tales of woe abound, and all the indicators point to one grim fact: we are set for a rough ride. As merry an indicator as it might be, one of the best yardsticks of popular contentment is the sale of beer. When the menfolk gather of a Sunday afternoon to bend an elbow terminating in a pint of golden lager, it seems that the nation as a whole is smiling. But, for the first time in two years, the Lion Brewery now reports that their sales are stagnant, a statistic they (with a century of experience behind them) interpret readily to reflect a high degree of public discontent. The nation is not as chirpy as Chandrika Kumaratunga and Wimal Weerawansa would like it to be. Grim faces abound; sullen looks are cast willy-nilly; and the dark muttering of discontent is abroad.

Other democracies have people whose job it is to give ear to public discontent, foment it, and point it in the way of toppling the government. Well, if the state's propaganda tells us true, that ear is resting softly on a pillow in far away Bali, for that is where Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and his wife Maithri are even now taking a break from the idleness of political activity (we use the term loosely) in Colombo. While we do hope they are having the time of their lives, one can't help hoping that the subject of Mother Lanka does pop into the conversation from time to time, between those pinacoladas.

With the UNF opposition (for want of a better word) otherwise engaged, the alliance government has developed a masterful means of ruling while yet divided. The principal partners of the alliance, the SLFP and the JVP, disagree on just about everything except their unmitigated greed for power. The SLFP wants to give the LTTE an interim government, the JVP does not. The SLFP keeps increasing the cost of living thanks to unending price hikes, the JVP appeals (with unbounded futility, of course) against these. The SLFP wants to give MPs spanking new luxury vehicles, the JVP says it shouldn't (but if they do, could they have a few, please?).

The JVP has thus decided to craft for itself an identity separate from the government, making it clear while they disagree with almost everything the Kumaratunga administration does and seeks to do, they remain as part of the alliance only to prevent it from being worse. No doubt that convoluted logic has at least some of Sri Lanka nodding its head in acquiescence, for some mothers do have 'em a bit dim. But the falsity of the JVP's logic does not seem to have sunk home to the UNP, for the opposition itself is doing precious little to point the government in the right way, even while it is closer to home than Bali.

It is a pleasure nowadays to meet up with core members of the UNP. Just about all they seem to talk about is how weak their leadership is, and how much they would like to see more dynamism at the top. These strictures, it seems, may only be articulated to third parties, and they either do not tell their leader, or their leader does not hear. Either way, they need to do something, even if only taking elocution classes or buying their leader a hearing aid, to ensure that the SLFP-JVP alliance is presented with some credible opposition. Yet, there hasn't been a pip out of the pipsqueaks of the UNP's working committee, whose eloquence shines only in the cocktail circuit where the single-malt flows freely.

Never before has an opposition had more to crow about. Spiralling prices, a deadlocked parliament, a President whose younger brother makes a perpetual fool of himself, a crashing rupee, frozen donor funding, unbounded unemployment, falling industrial output and, to cap it all, would you believe, a minority government. And what, pray, is the UNF's reply? A spanking new pensioner for a general secretary (no holiday in Bali for him). Far from moulding itself into a dynamic opposition, the UNF has set about establishing a home for the politically impaired and hard of hearing.

As it was also in 2001, the UNP's strategy, it seems, is merely to stay alive until government falls into its lap. It does not take Nostradamus to tell us we are in for a winter of discontent. The private sector, having seen the writing on the wall, has already begun to tighten its belt. Entertainment allowances have been slashed, new recruitment frozen, and every penny watched. The captains of industry are as good as the next man when it comes to knowing that hard times are ahead. Yet, the alliance government has set about borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, an ecclesiastic economy that might do very well in the world to come, but never seems to have found favour in this one.

While the UNP is living on borrowed time, the alliance is living on borrowed money. The result has been that lending rates are on the way up, bank loans even less affordable than they were before, and money circulation heavily curtailed. We are not quite at the point at which Kumaratunga's mother left government in 1977, when the poor were scouring dustbins for their next meal, but that is most certainly where we are headed.

Almost six months in office, the alliance has got nowhere (remember, the UNF government had been in office for less than four times as long, when Kumaratunga torpedoed it in November last year). No projects have got underway, no foreign investment attracted, and no jobs found except within government, which basically is the same as paying the unemployed a dole from taxpayers' money.

As much as we might sound like those prophets of doom, the grim truth has to be told. Few like to hear it, of course, but there is little we can do about that. The alliance government is like a runaway train careening down a slope, hopelessly out of control. Just when it will jump the tracks remains to be seen. But jump it will, making Sri Lanka a sadder place for us all to live. And we have no one to thank for it than an opposition that just won't rise from its slumber and do the job it is paid to do by the tax payers.