Reading the riot act to and by the Red Brigade

 The ‘Red Brigade’ has been of late the target of a series of vendettas on social media

How many times does the JVP have to, hat in hand, apologise for its mayhem that laid waste to a nation before the plantation community in particular, whose doyens occupy chairs of power in influential business chambers, believe them... and perhaps more importantly, forgive them – in the same spirit as these paragons of civics and good governance turn a blind eye on state terror in the 1987-9 era? I hear a captain of commerce and industry counter the charge with a claim that critics are comparing ambul with Cavendish? 

As the race to the hot seat heats up, it was inevitable that propaganda would come to overshadow any semblance of a principles-based debate among the chief contenders. 

Not for a lack of desire or opportunity. But based on a fear that the respective parties would be found wanting in terms of policies. To convince a jaded and yet ironically expectant electorate, and be discovered to be lamentably lacking in integrity. No leader likes being shown up as a facsimile of his opponents, much less his policy planks be exposed for being Potemkin villages. 

What other interpretation may we place on the steadfast refusal – despite sabre-rattling and claims to the contrary, after the non-event of a nationally-broadcast debate – of our leading Presidential candidates to step up to the plate, and face the people as much as their political rivals?

Also, not surprisingly, it is now open season on all comers with innuendo, fake news, scurrilous – if quite creative – memes, and personal opinions passing as sociopolitical commentary the forte.

Worse, one party, faction or coalition seems to be faring worse than most others: the NPP/JVP combine. Whether suffering from state capture by elites or subject to vilification by powerful classist forces in the City and town hall – whose ranks they once terrorised and still apparently terrify – the ‘Red Brigade’ has been of late the target of a series of vendettas on social media.

Whether amateur attempts to demonise the resurgent socialists through trumped up charges, or rather more sophisticated campaigns that sail so close to truth that they resemble the reality too uncomfortably for even the victimised NPP/JVP, these have had Colombo abuzz of late… courtesy many forwards and mostly mindless shares on a cross section of social media. 

How many times does the JVP have to, hat in hand, apologise for its mayhem that laid waste to a nation before the plantation community in particular, whose doyens occupy chairs of power in influential business chambers, believe them... and perhaps more importantly, forgive them – in the same spirit as these paragons of civics and good governance turn a blind eye on state terror in the 1987-9 era? I hear a captain of commerce and industry counter the charge with a claim that critics are comparing ambul with Cavendish? 

Need we rehearse the traducing of AKD as a mastermind or magician who manages a champagne lifestyle on a king coconut water income? Or repeat the threat that the NPP/JVP would reduce to rubble our precious republic that we’ve so painstakingly built? And re-forward the fake manifestoes on WhatsApp that laughably parody the Reds of a previous generation? 

Not, I think, if the more discerning of us could tell satire apart from sorry invective against would be socialist rabble-rousers. Fake news must be anathema to a mature electorate, even if the target of the attack probably deserves a due charge of growing up and becoming sanguine enough to be laughed at. If there is one thing that the modern-day socialists lack, it is a sense of humour, in addition to taking themselves and their newfound moderation far too seriously to be a joke...

There is another side to the tale. To be fair by our comrades, let’s hear them out per their manifesto: 

The other side

The NPP/JVP embraces a broader definition of corruption than fiscal misadventure or white-collar crime that spans petty theft in Urban Councils to graft in Pradeshiya Sabhas. But the umbrella it says it has unfurled to protect the people it wishes to represent doesn’t eschew the big leagues. Thus those who evade taxes as much as those who help corporates evade the same will be caught in their net. As would those who gain favourable contracts by unfair means, unduly use political power to achieve ends not commensurate with the national interest and make unjustifiable political and bureaucratic appointments of their kith or kin.

The party of the third part, once accused of standing on the wrong side of the law, claim they now know the legal system. In fact, their more juridically-savvy stalwarts would point to the IMF’s proposed enhancements or recommendations regarding corruption as the bane of a healthy political economy, and assure the polity that they are on the right side of the law.

The NPP/JVP say they are sanguine with the ‘Bribery Act’, the ‘Financial Code Act’ and the ‘Money Laundering Act’, affirming that the law of the land has sufficient legal teeth to capture and punish the culprits. This may be where the natural aversion of a citizenry fearful of kangaroo courts kicks in? For sure, one must be cautious of a man such as JVP MP Vijitha Herath, whose proclivity to punish – and say publicly with relish that he won’t hesitate to do so – is suspect off the bat. On the other hand, it is incontrovertible that so far, successive governments have failed to act substantively against the corrupt extant from previous regimes, betraying a dismal lack of political will. Which may be why a large and amorphous segment of civil society resonates with the long-postponed idea that those who raped and robbed the nation must receive their due soon.

The aspirants to the trappings of power have been – in the person of their more persuasive stalwarts such as NPP Executive Committee member Chathuranga Abeysinghe – able to articulate that the NPP/JVP will enable the state’s legal and juridical institutions to run properly with no political influence. 

The concept of ‘stolen assets’ also entails a spectrum of activities in the NPP/JVP playbook: the evasion of tax is as tantamount to illegally accumulated wealth as ill-gotten gains from a crookedly awarded government tender or the appropriation of lands under dubious provisions or spurious conditionalities.

The examples of fiscal misadventures that the NPP/JVP seek to address span a gamut from the sorry case of an SLPP-affiliated Sri Lankan diplomat in the US whose cupidity was proven in a New York court – although so far his home country has not collared the errant native on his return – to the sordid revelations offered by the ‘Pandora Papers’ whereby the wealth of a nation secreted overseas also blew the lid off the nexus between hugely influential populist politicians and highly placed officials in a powerful former regime.

The dirt on files

The so-called ‘JVP files’ – a staggering 545 of them – comprise a kaleidoscope of entering into and cancelling the ‘Airbus deal’, the ‘medical equipment deal’ and over a score of scores of others. This, of course, begs the question of the NPP/JVP’s integrity in not pursuing the matter post-haste legally; preferring instead to hold their cards close to their chest, biding their time for a more politically opportune moment, and opening them up fairly and squarely to the charge of postponable electioneering.

The biggest issue from the files for a putative NPP/JVP government of the future is that the funds transferred out reside monetarily in other countries. A case in each of these complaints would have to be filed in our courts first in order to seek repatriation of these funds. This hinges on mutual agreements with other nations or the Stolen Assets Recovery (StAR) programme. 

The NPP/JVP also point to the ‘Proceeds of Criminal Acts bill of 2019’ – to be made law – and the ‘Extradition Act’, under which they would seek to execute any future assets recovery programme. May we add the Financial Transactions Reporting Act No. 6 of 2006, Banking Act No. 30 of 1988, the Customs Ordinance of 1870, the Criminal Procedure Code itself, and the Code of Criminal Procedure Act No. 15 of 1979? 

The stumbling block over which actioning such a project under a UNP or an SJB or even an SLPP administration is that, in the NPP/JVP’s words, “Everybody is connected.” Such an incestuous inter-relationship between parties with vested interests and not-so hidden agendas has been anathema to the Aragalaya and its ancestors alike.

The descendants of such reforms as those being proposed by the NPP/JVP would have to address the sticking point that the executive system is too powerful. In Chathuranga Abeysinghe’s depressing illustration, a candidate garnering 150,000 votes can hold the president – and by extension of that leash, the nation – to ransom, to get their guilty associates or themselves off the hook… and certain chief executives themselves have been guilty of assuring MPs of their political careers if they will play ball… do I hear you, gentle reader, sighing: “It was ever thus!”?

The NPP/JVP are unequivocal in this, that as far as bringing perpetrators of a litany of crimes to book, the SLPP, the SJB and the UNP have the same political DNA – in a sense, it is one regime, a uni-political culture.

The rot runs deep, in the estimate of this party/coalition untouched by any serious allegations of misconduct along the lines of financial misappropriation. For instance, according to an unreleased presidential report on the bond scam, it is alleged that a sum of Rs. 3,250 million was disbursed among 75 politicians representing every major party: 25 SLPP, 55 UNP/SJB and a few SLFP bigwigs. For what, you may well ask, as they would...

The party maintains there is no convincing argument to say that the political corruption problem can be resolved through even a reformist UNP group such as the SJB. They invite the public to consider who is joining their ranks and why: no principles espoused, no publicly disclosed agreements! So the problem now, as well as historically speaking, for the NPP/JVP may be that people vote for them based on the policies they present and the principles they say they espouse, at the time of the election – rather than with the UNP or SLPP, say, whose supporters back a regime ad nauseam no matter what they do or stand for, rather than a set of ideas or principles?

Kings of a minor hill

The ostensibly clean party is steadfast in its claim that there are no allegations of corruption against JVP ministers in a previous government – that’s certainly how they see themselves. And in the absence of a formal charge or even rumours of war from political rivals, that’s remarkable. Save, of course, for the battery of scurrilous memes in which AKD is allegedly a charlatan or Bimal a hypocrite or Sunil Handunnetti a naïve simpleton – and that’s unremarkable in a polity where when one loses the argument, one tends to resort to snide intimations and generous dollops of mudslinging.  

The NPP/JVP would prevent future parliamentary crossovers to rid the legislature of a culture of rank opportunism. Other significant political reforms span the twin pillars of politics and economics. That their bottom line is that “politicians are not some sort of superior being” must come as a reassurance to an electorate that has been riddled with and ruined by the ‘Great Man’ theory – or fallacy – of leadership.

The party’s economic planks smacks of statism. Government must be involved in and control the energy, telecom, banking and technology sectors – not as state-owned businesses but pillars for industrial support. This redounds to the idea that governments facilitate industry whatever their ideology – supporting enterprise through policy directives, a robust tax regimen that is equitable, R&D, tech, and above all a low cost base for production to boost national exports and earn key foreign exchange. 

The NPP/JVP economic reforms will encompass streamlining the tax regime/ state revenue, external trade, energy, tourism and IT for equitability as much as efficiency.

The question on the lips of naysayers and doubters is: Does the NPP/JVP have the acumen to implement a complex policy framework? One recent response – that of Chathuranga Abeysinghe in a social media interview – must bemuse some and amuse others: “We have no experience in robbing banks, not collecting taxes or misappropriating funds – but we have enough intellectual capacity to understand and implement on the basis that politicians don’t know everything and don’t need to run the country.” 

Doing it their way?

The alternative praxis for the NPP/JVP is that politics is a management process – with elected representatives of the people providing the vision and policy direction. The bureaucracy and apparatus of state can and must do the rest. For instance, “Governments should not be appointing people to head SOEs…”

The unprofitability of SOEs under an NPP/JVP regime is “a narrative falsely created by a few – not all are supposed to be profitable as long as they are not a burden on the Treasury”. But of course, there are the perennial white elephants: CTB, Sri Lankan, CEB, CPC. Again, the response is glib: “If they couldn’t run a monopoly inefficiently, they are dumb…” 

The NPP/JVP are in favour of strategic SOEs making profits, and being independent and transparent, but Government ownership is paramount. Any divestiture of state assets must be through a transparent and accountable public process. In addition, there is no way for privatisation of SriLankan Airlines; because State ownership of the national airline is a key to unlock the effective functionality of the vital tourism industry.

The ‘biggest problem’ (another?) in Sri Lanka is that there is no national plan… the NPP/JVP ideologues claim they have, and are clear on their model of government providing industrial support services based on the recent successful examples of biz-govt. nexuses in India, South Africa and Vietnam.

The IMF reforms are unlikely to have the NPP/JVP on same side? But yes, they say, citing boosting state revenue, reducing government expenditure in line with earnings, rationalising the tax regime etc. – directions they claim to have championed before our bankruptcy. 

The gold standard is for tax revenue to be 26% of GDP; but historically, Sri Lanka has hovered around the 8% mark with a max of 13%. The NPP/JVP attributes this to the loss of the tax base by not widening the net; and not, as Ranil has done, to deepen the cut for existing taxpayers – and with SMEs and the poor bleeding from it the most profusely. 

The IMF would be open to a better proposal to achieve the same target? The NPP/JVP are to renegotiate: not to opt out of the economic reforms process, but to seek a better deal for the stricken island nation by dint of increasing production and boosting state revenue as well as national earnings.

The NPP/JVP may live by maxims the City would frown on or smirk at: “Do not refer to Sri Lanka as a good example of bond restructuring – because if we do better we have to pay more!” But it seems the only party offering the slimmest chance for a politically as well as fiscally bankrupt nation of anything approximating social justice and an equitable model of governance. And it is only the survey strategies that show the other contenders ahead, which is an indication of how those championing stability and the status quo fear change, which indicates the poorest of the poor will be influenced to vote for the so-called winning parties and perpetuate a cycle of elite oppression again.

The final analysis

The last words will be spoken on 21 September. But in the interim, a lot of hot air – and strategically targeted cold vitriol – has been spewed. And it is up to the savvy electorate we consider ourselves to be – in the City as much as paddy field and fishing village – to balance the matter of mere survival with the demands of social justice, which may outstrip any idea we have of staying alive, getting and spending, safeguarding our small turf and letting the rest of the state go to hell.

 

| Editor-at-large of LMD | Balancing stability and survival with bringing social justice and equitability |