From the bullet to the vote: can AKD become Sri Lankan Lee Kuan Yew? – OpEd

By Seevali Abeysekera*

All my previous posts regarding Sri Lankan politics, written over the past decade, had one main theme, which was that Sri Lankan politics was just an extension of a culture based on false values ​​that had incompetent, incompetent and semi-literate people created and promoted. leaders who had led the country to bankruptcy.

Never have I envisioned a day, certainly not in my lifetime, when large swaths, let alone the majority of the electorate, would reach a point where they could consider a paradigm shift in terms of leadership and thinking that would result in the political equivalence of the Earth’s tectonic plates shifting, resulting in massive tsunamis.

To my surprise and delight, that day happened and what seems like a new political dawn has arrived.

That a candidate was able to increase his share of the vote from 3% to 42% in just over five years was either a case of him transforming himself into an almost messianic figure, or a series of factors that suddenly made his message or brand of politics very made attractive. and necessary.

In other words: the perfect storm in which all the elements and stars united in his favor.

Newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s (AKD) vision of a society that treated every citizen as equal within a meritocracy was essentially a complete culture change in a country whose practices and values ​​can best be described as feudal, familial and patriarchal.

These values ​​were reflected in the political leadership which was based either on deceptive ‘old boy’ networks promoting abject mediocrity or on nepotism championing idiocy.

The country had a leadership group that was either arrogant, delusional retirees or descendants of previous leaders whose primary modus operandi and contributions to the betterment of the nation consisted of industrial-scale corruption and theft from the national treasury.

I didn’t realize how angry people were with the existing status quo because they were willing to put their trust in a man whose political party, just a decade ago, was often referred to by many as “Che Guevara” or “terrorists.”

Despair

The desperation for change was so great that 39% of the electorate, who had very different views on the AKD in 2019, placed their future and salvation in his hands. It is one of those remarkable outcomes where it was not the winner’s policies that won him victory, but rather the resentment and anger against all those who opposed him.

Such was the enormous degree of bitterness towards the traditional ‘rinse and repeat’ system of governance that had destroyed the country and brought it to its knees.

AKD will have to lead from the front and build a team around it that is, above all, competent, honest and truthful to the electorate. Appointments will have to be based on merit and not the traditional system of appointing sycophantic nodding ponies. Sri Lanka has a very high level of literacy and therefore it will be interesting to see how capable and competent its non-political appointees will be.

To ensure the reintroduction of the checks and balances so visibly lacking in Sri Lanka since the eradication of the Ceylon Civil Service (CCS), those appointed to non-political but vital civil service posts must be of the right caliber and are the right competence. .

Integrity thus becomes an essential aspect of AKD governance, because it is very easy to pontificate about integrity when you are outside the government, but very difficult to put integrity into practice from within.

For AKD to succeed, he must ensure that the rule of law is sacrosanct. It remains to be seen how he will go about changing a system akin to a legalized mafia operation whose main goal appears to be the enrichment of the people within at the expense of the public.

Multiple challenges

He will undoubtedly face multiple challenges from those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

Like Lee Kuan Yew (LKW), AKD must ensure that those responsible for civil and corporate crimes against the nation receive the full force of the legal system applied against them. How he does that within the context of a legal system that will ironically fear how the rule of law applies to them remains to be seen.

These challenges could potentially even jeopardize his presidency, as vested interests will fight any change that overturns their impunity and omnipotence.

Those who bankrupted the economy have praised the previous president for keeping the SL Titanic from sinking in 2022, but they are actually thanking him for saving their skins and ensuring they retain the opportunity to do what they have always done: enrich themselves at the expense of the economy. the masses.

As someone who I assume believes in the equal distribution of wealth, it will be fascinating to see how the AKD goes about giving the 95% who have next to nothing access to the obscene wealth concentrated under a small elite that controls 95% of the wealth. the wealth of the country.

Those who have legitimately acquired wealth and pay their taxes should encourage the AKD to take punitive action against those whose actions have left the public purse empty.

As part of his resignation speech, the previous president referred to the fact that Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves stood at just $20 million when he took office. The irony of that statement is that many who mourned his death probably had many times that in their personal bank accounts at the time!

Of course, none of these “patriots” have considered lending the Central Bank any of their money to enable the country to pay for basic needs during those desperate days of 2022. For starters, that would leave them with far too much scrutiny have opened up.

It is much better to borrow even more billions from foreign lenders!

AKD must be aware that 58% of the electorate did not vote for him, and within that are those with enormous wealth, economic influence and perhaps more real power than him. If they turn hostile, his presidency could be both dangerous and possibly short-lived.

In order for the AKD to consolidate power and implement its mandate and policies, he needs many more representatives of his party in parliament. The new parliamentary elections that he called for in November will be the real test of whether the electorate really believes that Sri Lanka needs a dramatic change in political direction, or whether his election was merely a protest vote by those whose core values ​​are still increasingly entrenched in the failed feudal fake democracy that has existed since independence.

Stated objective

Ironically, the AKD’s stated goal of wanting to dissolve the executive presidency, which bestows so much power on one individual with few or no checks and balances, can only be achieved if two-thirds of parliamentarians vote to abolish the position.

So far this has not happened because the vast majority of parliamentarians in Sri Lanka have benefited from having an executive presidency – regardless of which political party they belong to. A classic case of Turkey not wanting to vote for Christmas!

Therefore, how voters vote on November 14th will be just as important, if not more so, than the votes they cast on September 21st.

There’s also the small matter of a national language. it was very encouraging to note that there were no communal or race-based narratives by any candidate in the presidential election. That was also a welcome paradigm change.

I have always believed that Sri Lanka can only progress as a united nation if a common language is used by all. Language unifies by default. That one language must be English, which then becomes the language of learning.

The same foresight that Lee Kuan Yew had when he made English the national language of Singapore. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the remarkable results and rewards of that courageous vision.

If the electorate can enable AKD to consolidate his victory by giving him the tools to govern, then how he navigates the various dangerous minefields described above will determine his presidency and Sri Lanka’s future prosperity.

Ultimately, it will be his internal battles with these vested domestic interests, rather than foreign debtors or regional geopolitics, that will determine whether the tectonic shift in his election as a very different type of Sri Lankan president will truly shape the country’s position . future.

Can AKD be the local version of LKY that the country has so desperately needed since 1948?

• Seevali Abeysekera is a retired businessman based in London.