Money for everything other than elections

Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Executive Board approved a new Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement for Sri Lanka. The 17th such EFF is in the range of $ 2.9 billion. According to the IMF, the 48-month extended arrangement “aims to restore Sri Lanka’s macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability, mitigating the economic impact on the poor and vulnerable, safeguarding financial sector stability, and strengthening governance and growth potential.” 

President Ranil Wickremesinghe announced that the first tranche of the EFF amounting to $ 320 million had already been received. The jubilant President proclaimed that “Sri Lanka was no longer a bankrupt nation.”

The finalisation of the EEF is indeed welcomed news. While it is not a panacea for the deeply entrenched structural problems of the country, it may offer some respite and breathing space from the current economic crisis. One assumes that austerity, addressing corruption and wastage and obtaining a people’s mandate for the painful reforms ahead would be the priorities of the Government. Instead, the Government of President Wickremesinghe is taking a victory lap as if the crisis is behind us. 

The same week as the international bailout was finalised the President’s office announced that this year’s Vesak festival is set to be celebrated on a grand scale both nationally and locally on the instructions of the President. This is in the same spirit in which Independence Day was celebrated last month. This comes amidst claims that the State is too broke to hold local government elections. 

It was only a few weeks ago that President Wickremesinghe claimed in Parliament that there is no money to hold elections. “For now, there is no money. But for now, there is no election either. There is no money for an election, and even if there was, there is no election. So what do we do?” the head of state quipped on that occasion. His Government has tried every trick in the book to prevent the holding of elections. Last week State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe requested the Speaker of Parliament to refer to the conduct of the judges of the Supreme Court who gave the interim order pertaining to the Local Government elections as a breach of Parliamentary Privileges. The Speaker accepted the request and made a referral to the Parliamentary Committee on ethics and privileges.  

The move for postponement of the elections comes as the Government has shown little signs of austerity or seriousness in addressing unsustainable expenditure in the State sector. At the last budget presented by President Wickremesinghe, the Ministries of Defence and Public Security were allocated a whopping Rs. 539 billion amounting to more than 2% of Gross National Product. It has also failed to deliver on any meaningful reforms of loss-making SOEs such as the Ceylon Electricity Board, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and SriLankan Airlines. The current administration has also failed to address corruption and wastage within its ranks, further diluting its credibility for economic competence.

Holding of elections is not a choice given to the executive, but a fundamental responsibility enshrined in the constitution. The electoral process is centric to the very democratic concept since it is the institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of competitive struggle for the people’s vote. It is especially relevant in today’s context in which the President has no popular mandate to hold high office and is tasked with carrying out significant reforms within the economy. He cannot play it both ways by claiming that the country is bankrupt to hold elections but also no longer bankrupt after receiving the IMF bailout. It is long past time to call his bluff and demand the expression of the peoples’ will through free and fair elections.