ECONOMYNEXT – Successive governments in Sri Lanka have left behind a country riddled with corruption and indebted to the world, opposition National People’s Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said, despite allegations that his own party has contributed to the status quo.
Addressing a meeting in Borella on Sunday August 27, Dissanayake said Sri Lankan voters elected different governments over the years with many unfulfilled expectations.
“Governments were formed to end corruption, to punish those who engage in corruption, to escape the debt trap, to meet our basic needs.
“But what was the country the rulers left for us? A bankrupt country, a country pushed to the guillotine of poverty,” he said.
Fighting corruption has been the focal point of a campaign targeting a future election by Dissanayake’s NPP, which saw a rise in its popularity in the wake of the Aragalaya people’s protests of 2022 that unseated then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
An opinion poll in August, however, showed that Dissanakaye’s net-favourability rating has seen a significant decline over July.
‘Fighting corruption’ and ‘recovering stolen assets’ have been popular slogans since the Aragalaya protests in Sri Lanka and the NPP has made it its central theme in its bid for power. Increasingly, the leftist outfit has also adopted a position that’s cautiously critical of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the reforms the international lender has prescribed for Sri Lanka in exchange for a 2.9 billion-dollar bailout.
“They never thought about a good healthcare system for our children and parents. They thought about a healthy life for themselves,” said Dissanayake, claiming that no politician from the mainstream parties have put the people first.
The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) and the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) have all opted to attack the NPP, said Dissanayake, adding that all parties not aligned with the NPP are in one camp.
“One of the two camps will have to be chosen. Sould people pick those who robbed them of their wealth and continue to protect those thieves? Or should they pick who will put an end to the robbery and punish those thieves?”
The NPP and the Marxist-Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the party that effectively comprises the majority of the NPP and controls the “alliance”, have been calling for an end to a “75-year curse”, a reference to nearly 75 years of independence in Sri Lanka that saw the centre-right UNP and the centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLPP) and their various offshoots, reconfigurations and alliances taking turns to govern the country.
Since the 2022 protests, the JVP – also led by Dissanayake – and other “outsider” parties have doubled down on this anti-establishment rhetoric, demanding a so-called system change as fast as democracy will allow, if not faster.
However, critics say neither the JVP nor any of its fellow travellers has so far articulated a workable solution to the crisis and Sri Lanka’s other innumerable woes besides a vague promise to end corruption and change Sri Lanka’s political culture.
The former SLPP-government’s role in triggering Sri Lanka’s ongoing currency crisis is well established. Ill-advised policies by then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and officials appointed by him have been roundly crticised by economists, opposition groups, civil society activists, academics and others. A claim earlier this by former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa’s claim that the SLPP was not solely responsible does not hold much water, to say the least, according to these experts, though others will agree that questionable policies adopted by successive governments going back decades share a sizable portion of the blame.
The JVP, though it was never in government barring a brief stint in an SLFP-led coalition in the early 2000s, is not without blame.
Three key policy pillars articulated by the JVP from 2001-2004 and embraced by mainstream politician Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration in 2005 onward have been highlighted by experts.
"From 2001 to 2003, state workers fell from 1.164 million to 1.043 million. By 2020, the public sector cadre has grown to 1.58 million with another batch of 53,000 unemployed graduates being paid tax money."
From 2005, Sri Lanka halted privatisation, started recruiting tens of thousands of unemployed graduates into the public service every year with lifetime pensions, expanding an already bloated public sector and denying any benefit of a peace dividend to the country.
Sri Lanka also abandoned a price formula for fuel that had helped keep the rupee stable and inflation low from 2001 to 2003 even as global commodity prices went up from the ‘mother of all liquidity bubbles’ fired by the Federal Reserve from 2001.
"පිටරට තෙල් මිල වැඩි වෙනකොට මෙහෙ තෙල්මිල වැඩි කරන්න ආණ්ඩුවක් මොකටද " - ප්රචාරක ලේඛම්, ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ
From 2001 to 2003, state workers fell from 1.164 million to 1.043 million. By 2020, the public sector cadre has grown to 1.58 million with another batch of 53,000 unemployed graduates being paid tax money.
- https://economynext.com/jvp-blames-...kas-woes-leaves-out-own-contributions-129443/
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