Yahapalanaya Government renegaded on its guarantees, a potent force emerged.
The government had not fulfilled its pre-election promises and what the masses should do is not to topple the government, but to make it fulfill its pledges by striving to bring about a radical change in the country politically, economically, and socially, which had lacked for decades.
Both the previous and the incumbent government should take the responsibility for these critical blunders. It appears that the government is incapable of arriving at a consensus on a single major crucial policy. Every issue seems to be left postponed in suspense pending a decision. The parliamentary debate on the constitutional amendments has been postponed without fixing a date for its resumption. There is no agreement on the main features of the constitution; president’s powers, executive presidency, devolution of state power, unitary state, federalism, state religion, North East merger, electoral system etc., which reflect unswervingly as harsh repercussions on the country.
Further there is no firm decision on any of the major development projects. Even in ongoing expressway projects there are conflicts in non payment of due compensation for those who sacrificed their ancestral lands. Nobody seems to know how much of land is to be allocated for the Hambantota project. There is no transparency at all. Even the President and the cabinet are reserved in the gloom concerning these matters. President says the Hambantota project is not finalised, but the Prime Minister goes ahead and starts it and receives the fury of the people in the South. The Prime Minister’s committee for reconciliation recommends the employment of foreign judges, lawyers, and prosecutors to conduct the legal cases against armed forces accused of war crimes. However, a Minister who is one of the government spokesmen has totally rejected these recommendations. A project that the Prime Minister said was a Volkswagen car manufacturing plant turns out to be a non-Volkswagen project and nobody knew about it until the foundation stone was laid for it. A state Minister had added that the Prime Minister likes the shape of the Volkswagen which has the shape of a tortoise whose progress is snail’s pace like him. The state Minister has not demonstrated his fidelity to his stalwart.
Some Ministers are on contradictory views on the next presidential candidate confessing that President Maithripala Sirisena will be the presidential candidate of the SLFP in 2020. But Minister Rajitha Senaratne the cabinet spokesman says there will be no presidential election in 2020 and President Sirisena has not changed his position that the executive presidency should be abolished. However former President Chandrika Kumaratunga says the Central Committee has not taken a decision regarding the presidential candidate. Minister Susil Premjayantha speaks about the complicatedness of enduring the coalition with the UNP on account of the intensifying the variances linking the two parties. These kinds of utterances which are opting more frequently reveal the deepening conflict within the government. These are the reasons for the deficiency of investor buoyancy in this government. Yet the President says nobody could topple this government until it runs its course with a bit of trembling at present. The Prime Minister says the government is performing excellently.
At this moment what is momentous to the people is how stretched are they to tolerate this ambiguity as these are crucial matters that may influence their meagre survival. The monetary down turn which is enduring unabated, main root of which could be the vagueness and unpredictability of strategy, arising out of the intrinsic contradiction between the two parties and for which the government does not seem to have a retort. The economic development of a country cannot afford hindrance due to uncertainty, irresolute, and negation within the government. In a ruthless and highly competitive world such delay could be disastrous and cause irrecoverable trouncing and irreparable scratch to the economy.
The logic of desperation and bareness appears to have inflicted into the psyche of people diagonally in the nation. The flowers that were planted on either side of the roads for beautification have wilted away and the pots are in disarray. There is no mechanism to even clear these damaged flower pots or the debris.
People live life, only because they need to survive sans any intention and aspirations. In an uncomplicated perspective life is only a fluid perception.
Many farmers are stepping away from farming or they cultivate only for survival. Office employees report to work only because they need to and not because they want to. The businessmen lament the vagueness of what the expectations hold. A serious blunder of the “Yahapalanaya” government is in the quest of accumulating revenue in a robust manner burdening the average person with taxes for the sins in the previous era sans recovering the colossal amount of money pilfered.
It has now revealed that the perpetrators of these stupidities of the government are trusted associates of the regime, one might speculate whether they were hatching a plot to tumble the Government. In the circumstances, the illogical might deem that the dashed coconuts of the Joint opposition members were not busted in vain.
What is noteworthy is that those irritated in vain by these petty operations form a prominent part of the “Yahapalanaya” support base. They are people with a wide circle of contacts and have the power to influence a large segment of the population that comes in contact with them day in and day out. Evidently, these alienations would have a decisive bang on the consequence of the oncoming local government elections. That force may be stronger than all the other failures of governance collectively. Silent confrontation to them may be more effective than all the determined campaigns of the Joint Opposition, Trade Unions and non-governmental organizations placed simultaneously.
A government incapable of solving its internal problems obviously cannot have the capacity to govern a country as it is being clearly demonstrated by this government. But it has the bravery to proclaim that it will continue no matter what happens at the expense of the dour, dismal and wretched people. The only solution is the formation of a potent force, a broad national force, consisting of specialists in different fields, scholars, and intellectuals etc., to bring the country on the precise pathway and arrest the deterioration in contemporary politics.
Sunil Thenabadu
Email sthenabadu@hotmail.com Brisbane, Australia
