A new hope to sweep a House clean?

The citizenry vote for political leaders in the hope that ‘this time’ there will be change for the better; and the electorate is disappointed time and again 

– Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

Ah – yes, the old lie: that the hope of a nation resides in the chamber where chairs are thrown at critics and chillies are employed to evict policemen keen on restoring law and order.

And a major reason for the electorate in general and political pundits in particular being so cynical about the assembly we unmindfully describe as being august is in both the character and performance of the legislators we elected – lest we forget, let us remember and chide ourselves!

As a senior journalist observed in these columns not many moons ago: “Sri Lanka has chronically elected crooks, charlatans, the incompetent, the corrupt, and the utterly unrepentant of their litany of crimes.” 

The same editorialist added that “to add insult to injury, these aspirants still have the gumption to stand for public office as if their ambition for the House is for it to be in the order they say they want the Nation to be in”. 

As other political analysts and electoral commentators have also observed, the citizenry vote for political leaders in the hope that ‘this time’ there will be change for the better; and the electorate is disappointed time and again. 

Although ‘next time’ round too, the voting population opts to invest their faith in the electoral system – to say nothing of essentially the same political leadership figures albeit with a few new faces – all over again. 

As a brace of Colombo University academics observe: “There is also a growing dissatisfaction with, and a lowering of trust in, the functioning of political parties. This has led to a paradoxical situation. People feel that the political parties are essential to the functioning of democracy but do not seem to trust them for making democracy work...”

New hope

What price change, then? Well, for starters, ‘the past is prologue’. The adrenaline of one election result tends to flow in voters’ veins. Especially in an electorate where citizens suspect that their politicos are losers en masse, but are always on the lookout for a dark horse of better breeding to back. A sitting president now might recall for the benefit of his coalition that yearns for an NPP landslide to capture the legislature his words on the campaign trail of many studied and strategic years. 

Then ‘AKD’ expressed the hope that following his putative presidential victory, parliament – nay, a people grown weary of the lot of them sitting there in the lap of luxury and lacklustre lawmaking tainted by lacunae in personal probity – would be fully relieved of two-thirds of MPs in the House.  

New votes

However where this deluge of votes would come from could be a moot point in a polity traditionally cautious about granting newcomers the golden sceptre of sovereign power. However willing electorates may have been in the past to bow before benevolent tyrants, political messiahs and saviours of the nation from the enemy at the gate – we have learned our lessons the hard way about trusting in ‘the Great Man theory’ of political leadership.

Of course, Anura Kumara Dissanayake is charismatic in his way without being populist and authoritative sans a hint of autocracy yet. But it is his humility in accepting that even sweepingly elected presidents have feet of clay and need to rely on expert advice, savvy counsellors and a professional bureaucracy that may spare him the punishment for the hubris that nemesis extracted on his predecessors. I suspect though that although the JVP-led NPP is counting on AKD’s shrewd positioning of himself as the man of the people who senses their pain and more than empathises is not going to be sufficient to grant the Left-leaning (at best), Marxist-Leninist (at worst) or socialist (being neutral) camp the flood it seeks.  

New way

There is a ‘still more excellent way’. And that may be for the president with the potential to sweep the Augean stables of government clean of the stain and stench of corruption to have to yoke his executive oxen to a legislative team comprising a myriad of more experienced ploughing engines. Of course, only recently having inherited the mantle, it would be a pity if AKD comes to be hamstrung by one of ‘the usual suspects’ as his prime minister.

This is not a plea for the redoubtable Harini to become ensconced as PM. Stalwart though she may be, it might be to the detriment of a nation on the cusp of redeeming itself from more than sovereign debt default to have a brace of socialists at best at the helm of the state. However incorruptible the JVP may have been while in office post its reformation from militancy to achieve its ends, and no matter that the NPP has in its rank some stellar (albeit untested) professionals and intellectuals, the ship of state may founder in the choppy waters of enforced economic performance sailing an IMF keel if the rudder doesn’t come under steadier control than “we didn’t bankrupt the country” as a mantra to ward off charges of 

inexperience.

New trend

Not to teach a once starving mother and her sickly, unschooled child how to suck eggs...

But wouldn’t it be in Sri Lanka’s best interests to have a visionary president being ably supported by a capable prime minister from another party with a proven track record?

And time will tell who that will be.

    

(Editor-at-large of LMD | The power of a vote)