Unredeemed pledges
Could the PA face an election now?

by Kusal Perera
We are shaking off the trauma of another bloody debacle that rocked the country a week or so ago. The Deputy Defence Minister had, it was reported, gone to the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers' to that week with his own news of the real situation and was reported to have said the loss of only 160 soldiers in Kilinochchi is amply compensated with the taking over of Mankulam. As the "Deputy", he is solely in control of the war, Projecting himself as the present day "Sembukutti Perumal" (popularly known as Sapumal Kumaraya) and at the time he was answering the question in the meeting posed by a person no less than the PM herself, was no less than the Acting Minister of Defence with HE the President out of the island.

Yet the whole story on the fall of Kilinochchi was out and public in no time. It was naive for one to even think of using a blanket censorship on news in this world of Information technology, where news gathers through Internets and E-males, much faster than them coming in print. So the story went that Kilinochchi was totally over run by the LTTE, its soldiers, arms and ammunition all lost beneath a fluttering Tiger flag. To make amends, the Acting Defence Minister hurried to the Mankulam junction and hoisted a Lion flag and there, the "Jaya sikurui" had won the day.

Now let's be clear about all this. Though I am no military strategist, I am rather conversant with the map of Sri Lanka. In our map, Mankulam is only a junction, with a school, a few boutiques and was there a little kovil as well? Any way it could be of strategic importance in this war, while Kilonochchi is the biggest town, exactly half way between Vavuniya and Jaffna. This commercial hubbub has a district hospital, a Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya (this may not be there any more), Tamil Maha Vidyalaya, a central bus stand, a very popular Sunday pola, a district timber depot of the Timber corporation (wonder whether it still operates) and many other government institutes and departments, catered to a very large business and commercial traffic at the centre of the district of Kilinochchi.

The whole argument of the much delayed and overly pampered "Jaya sikurui" military campaign, was to open up the land route to Jaffna, for which it was said, the taking over of the Mankulam junction was of paramount importance. Having hoisted a Lion flag at Mankulam junction, is the land route to Jaffna now open? To put this question in a different context, if the military is given the choice of choosing between the town of Kilinochchi and that of Mankulam junction, what would they prefer to have? Will they choose Mankulam, giving Kilinochchi to the Tigers?

With massive losses borne by the state security, with relatives, mothers and fathers, wives, sisters and brothers, all thronging in hundreds from deep and remote villages to the Colombo General hospital, seeking assistance to trace their beloved, the PA was at a loss from meeting the reality and saving the face of the "Minister General". It would have been very much easy for the PA if the real situation was officially made public. But there are dud coins one or two no doubt, that make the whole business of governance falter and when they become VIPP, ''tis the hardest.

Then the war and "Jaya sikurui"; it was the only issue the PA was trying to capitalise on after four full years in power, having failed in delivering the goods to the people, who were promised a comfortable and cheaper livelihood, peace and transparency in governance and the demolishing of the Executive Presidential system, among other things.

To begin with, the Colombo based Tamil political parties who thought the PA would at least be honest in their interventions in seeking a sustainable solution to the ethnic issue, have lost faith. The little bit of intervention among the southern polity for a mediated political settlement with devolution of powers through Sudu Nelums and Thawalams, had vanished, leaving no trace of even their leading campaigners. A protracted war is what the country is left with now. The only reason why these Tamil groupings still linger around the PA is because the UNP is also not firm in their commitments in solving the ethnic issue, what ever their Leader Wickramasinghe doles out for international consumption. Thus there is no visible alternative for the Tamil groupings to leave the PA and the security they enjoy, right now.

The ambiguous and dual stand of the PA leadership in peddling with the "package" on and off hoping to keep the Tamil groupings closer to them while waging war, has also driven rifts between the Sinhala polity with more and more anti-package, anti-Tamil formations, Providing the already dissatisfied voter with a platform to articulate their disgust and disenchantment. These crude Sinhala extremist formations have provided space for break away JVPers to make a living out of unwanted deaths in an unwanted war, by calling for more deaths in a more brutal war.

To this add the rising cost of living. And the workers who with tradition move towards "left" alliances, feel once again jilted. Their work places go under the hammer at prices much below their reckoning with no clear plans for development and thus with no job security. Their hope in having some form of employment security with a Workers" Charter, has also been shelved in its draft form. This has in turn injured the ego of Trade Union bosses who backed the PA to power.

The ordinary farmer who ekes out a living from short term crops is dissatisfied with all the imports of foodstuff at cheap rates, that push the farmers in to more perils than just giving up farming. They have not been given an assured market and they have not been subsidised either to cushion off any damage from a market that is manipulated by cheap imports.

The educated youth who were promised a fertile future through Samurdhi had run in to conflicts with their own political Organisers in their own districts. They are yet not sure they would be permanent in their jobs and how they would be made permanent is in itself challenged. And by now these youth have carved a niche in their areas and would be a motivating force in shifting public opinion if not in the very urban areas, definitely in other areas. And beg to say it is the JVP that has moved in to soothe the woes of the Samurdhi niyamakas.

Reasons apart, the PA style of getting about business, leaves no political force listening and sympathetic to their rhetoric. They have failed to create an identity of their own as well, in programming. This is no doubt conspicuous, if one dares watch their own state media. Publicity on the "Presidential mobile service", which is nothing more than mediocre, is plain "Premadasa stuff" with absolutely no originality. Then comes functions through "Seva Vanitha", more haughty than those of Hema Premasada. "Sevana", a brain child of President Premadasa, spins along even between news telecasts, fetching money for all. It is thus clear the PA has not on their own initiated any thing new. They have not on their own initiated peace negotiations. Peace negotiations took place many times before and under the auspices of both JR and Premadasa. They have not initiated a war on their own to defeat the LTTE. The war is a decade and a half old, with no win for all. Privatisation was taking place when they came to power, may be the difference was only in the size of commissions. And the list runs on political components of the PA objected to and opposed while they were in opposition and the PA is now duplicating in a very amateurish way.

It is this feeling among the opinion makers and political activists that would have to be changed, if the PA wants to go ahead with any election, from Provincial Council to presidential. It is this category of political activist who would have to be convinced that there is a definite change and for the better, if the PA wishes to launch their campaign. Let me stress this very clearly. It is not, what media the PA is going to manipulate or how, that matters most, but what they got to say on the major issues that would matter at the end. The people should find some thing tangible after all to believe what the media doles out.

Thus the question the PA should face blunt and square is the question of a short term programme for the coming two years. Let's accept the fact that the PA slogged on for four years at the expense of the greater polity and at the expense of their own activists without a working programme and the damage is no little for all. This trend or practice would have to be reversed if they have any semblance of a hope to continue further. Right now the PA would have to work fast on two platforms or areas. One on the democratic side and the other on the economic The shortest would be to redesign the Executive Presidency to fit the parliamentary democracy. Let's not try to argue for the sake of arguing that the Executive presidency is dealt with, within the proposed constitutional changes that incorporates solutions to the ethnic crisis. That is a far cry to achieve. The ethnic crisis to come to an end would have to have a diverse forum of opinion converge on a consensus, which in itself is a major task. But the executive Presidential issue is one that could have a broader consensus both within and without the parliament, taken on its own. It is this that the PA should exploit to win back some lost credibility.

On the economic field too, the PA should have a working programme, to answer most critics of free and open market economy. There is now a debate as to how much open the market economy should be and who should intervene to lobby it, with much more emphasis on the third sector, that's the civil society and not the government as perceived earlier, Financial Management Gurus like Peter Drucker feels a market that is run on supply and demand alone would provide no opportunity for planning for the future. That, he holds as one major flaw in a market economy. Thus it is now a case of having a planned market economy where capital could be shifted to areas that needs greater growth and more technology. It is also now argued that modern automation of a society does not necessarily create unemployment.

The PA should therefore move its emphasis to areas like agriculture, fisheries and aquatic resource development through small and medium entrepreneur ventures where the concept should be to add value to the original product before releasing to the market. Which merely as simple examples would mean, tomatoes and chillies would not flood the market to find rock bottom prices. They would leave the areas in processed forms thus adding value to the product. This is where the government should intervene as it needs planning and bringing in new technology with more flexible market practices. The PA should decide to move in to areas outside the metropolis, find new economic areas to develop that would benefit a broader layer of the society with better disbursement of capital. And it means plainly that the PA would have to come back sober, accept their follies and really put their feet down to work for two good years to come, before thinking of an election. But the billion rupee question is, "how capable is the PA to face this challenge?"