Maintaining cohesiveness within NPP

How will the NPP inculcate their preference and behaviour among the new faces in the Parliament? 

Every single member in the party must understand and absorb the vision of the leadership of the NPP. The stated vision must be transparent and explicit. It must not provide loopholes for a cynic to implicitly translate unfavourably. They all must share the same vision as that of the leadership. Once this is established they are able to formulate the missions that are relevant for their own territories of work

Many of our previous Governments of recent times fell into major problems since the leadership lost control of its party members. The problem was further compounded since quite a few of them were coalition governments. The NPP is a single party government with enormous power. Yet NPP can’t afford to remain complacent. 

The most important concern is to maintain cohesive relationships among the team members of NPP. It is not an easy task. The team size is so large with five-sixth of them being new to the parliament. The possibility to err is high at the initial stages.  

Every single member in the party must understand and absorb the vision of the leadership of the NPP. The stated vision must be transparent and explicit. It must not provide loopholes for a cynic to implicitly translate unfavourably. They all must share the same vision as that of the leadership. Once this is established they are able to formulate the missions that are relevant for their own territories of work.

Delegation of power to the Ministers and Deputy Ministers must revolve around empowerment granted to them to work independently but without conflicting with the superordinate goals. An effective distribution of delegation will reflect a positive culture and would motivate the members to increase effectiveness and efficiency in their job functions. Needless to say that ultimate ‘Unity of Command’ must be vested with the President. 

There can’t be two visions

Every member in the party must subscribe to the vision of the President. There can’t be two visions. All the mission statements drafted by the ministers and deputy ministers for their respective ministries must not directly or indirectly become paradoxical to the stated vision of the party. 

The NPP must understand the needs of its members and work towards providing facilities that will enable the new members of parliament to enjoy the privileges granted by their party. All such privileges and provisions must take into account their needs and not necessarily their wants. Wants can become insatiable and when that happens it becomes a gateway for corruption. This is when they swim into the world of corruption. We have seen this happening to many of our businessmen, government officials and the politicians and not excluding the clergy. In the recent past it went above board and unabated.  

It is important to expose the new members to some structured orientation programs. It is more important to ensure the basic necessities of these MPs are adequately met. It is true that almost all of them did not own a car, maybe due to their inability to own one or the necessity to own one did not arise. But now being an honourable member in the society, a vehicle may become a necessity. The Government may reconsider its decision in this regard. 

We are made to understand that the report of the committee that was reviewing the benefits and allowances of MPs and Ministers was handed over to the President this week. 

Hierarchy of needs

In the light of the fact that we human beings are driven to perform depending on the rewards that we receive for our effort. It may be quite relevant to understand the perspectives of different levels of satisfaction that a person looks forward to for his effort. We all have a hierarchy of needs. The basic level is the need for food shelter and security. Once fulfilled he looks for social needs and then the ego needs. 

Most of the new members of parliament are in between acquiring social needs and ego needs and perhaps some are in the threshold of ego needs. They are looking forward to social interactions and social acceptance. This is quite natural and social needs are a positive motivator. The problem begins with the ego needs. Ego influences your attitude and style. There are two facets of ego. On one hand it refers to how you want to see yourself and on the other hand how you want others to see yourself. Professionals belonging to the former group will be quite content and will be influenced by ‘achievement motivation’ and appreciation of good work. They are less likely to get motivated by material and financial benefits. 

The behaviour of a good number of politicians in the recent past amply demonstrated their preference to create a good image about themselves. This ego will crave for recognition, reputation and respect. We have seen in the recent past how egoistic politicians went on to own luxurious vehicles, multi number of homes, hotels, businesses, fat dollar balances in foreign banks, etc. etc. This evil ego drives around to create favourable impression about themselves in the minds of others.

Apex of NPP

The apex of NPP is absolutely honest. This is the strength of NPP. This commitment to uphold honesty and integrity will withstand any unscrupulous plans and strategies that the opponents may try to hatch against them. Such negative ploys can come from defeated individuals and/or from rival parties. 

How will the NPP inculcate their preference and behaviour among the new faces in the Parliament? This is a million dollar issue. Whether you are a parliamentarian or not, we all have frozen ideas to a greater extent. To unfreeze what is frozen is a challenging task. And even more difficult is to refreeze the new idea. This exercise must be done to ensure harmony of ideas and views. If not this will give rise to conflicts among themselves. 

Intra conflict within the party members is something that cannot be avoided due to divergence in views. Hence the need to manage and control. A certain level of conflict is productive but if the ultimate focus is to achieve a win-lose situation then it becomes counter productive. A higher intensity of intra conflict can be more damaging to the NPP than inter party conflicts with the Opposition bench. 

NPP must also create and establish a “Herd Instinct” among all of them. Change process is made easy provided the team members willingly subscribe to the herd instinct. But there ought to remain a few rebels within. They must be made a silent minority.

All the above issues are easily said and done but remain somewhat a difficult task to implement. This is because politics is an art influenced by situations. In natural science such situations can be predicted. In politics we are revolving around erratic human behaviour with hidden agendas.

Humans are born with the genes to conflict and kill. Robots with artificial intelligence will soon become a meaningful alternative to the human race!

(The writer is a former Deputy Director General of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka.)