Parliamentary Elections 2010: Living through a kleptocracy and not wanting an alternative
Are we honestly serious in wanting democracy, our rights and human development, to live in Sri Lanka ? If we are, how are we seeing to it, that we do really enjoy such a luxury in this beleaguered nation ?
All what had been happening and allowed to happen, don’t in any way even hint that this country is at least serious about living by the day, leave alone democracy, rights and development for the future.
If the people were serious, this society would not be entertaining any of the rubbish that is doled out as politics and promises by political leaderships, blue, green or red, at every election for 62 years. If the people are serious, this country would not have had all this riff raff in society coming forward to contest elections and also get elected to be part of government and often be called “Ministers”. If there was any semblance of seriousness, the type of humbugs that have been voted for at all elections in all these years, would not have been misusing State power and public money, the way they have been.
IF this country had been any serious, a racist kleptocracy would not be asking for a popular vote with confidence, while the Opposition is happy left playing the fiddle on the side walks of the same Sinhala politics of a government, they only accuse as obsessively corrupt and undemocratic, but nothing else.
Yes. Corruption in governance, not only by politicians but with top Administrators involved too and often and almost always in partnership with business leaders, had been an issue that had never been taken seriously by the people. Policies and development plans are other factors the society and social leaders have not been interested in, to question, demand and develop a social discussion.
They have not been issues the constituency gets divided on policy terms and decides at elections. Therefore, elections how ever free and fair, have not been utilised to demand and discuss future policy and plans. Again, and because of that disregard, this society does not discuss rampant poverty that never gets alleviated. Elections, even if peaceful all through their campaign period, don’t discuss why almost the same percentage of the population still live under poverty since independence, that was 62 years ago.
The first major focus on poverty alleviation was in 1990 under President Premadasa, with the launch of the Janavasiya programme and its Trust Fund. Then it was highlighted, poverty was a rural phenomenon with about 80% of total poverty being rural and the percentage under poverty calculated at 26.1%. The poverty line then in 1990 was drawn at a monthly family earning of Rs. 1,100 in all.
Janasaviya was given a total facelift in 1995 and was established under a separate Ministry as “Samurdhi”. A massive poverty alleviation empire was created with public funds, employing around 26,000 “Samurdhi” officers. The poverty line was raised to Rs. 1,400 in year 2002 and the percentage living in poverty had increased to 28.8%. The poverty line was again raised to Rs. 1,650 by the year 2005 and those living under poverty was said to be 26%.
Obviously the “Rupee” in 2005 could not buy what it could buy in 1990 and there were no reduction in poverty in Sri Lanka. Nothing different and better had happened ever since “Mahinda Chintanaya” was peddled as a “pep up” syrup for all ailments.
From 1990 since Janasaviya was first launched, now in 2010 and twenty years after, with “Samurdhi” claimed as a better programme for poverty alleviation, we still have almost the same population under poverty all through the past years, with an increased “Samurdhi” employee network touching or more than 30,000 that did not adequately cover North and East. North and East comes as “projections” or as special basic information with a foot note to say “not enumerated as …….” even in census and statistics tables, in the department.
That being so on poverty that is never questioned even during the elections, this society exists with the bottom 20% of the population restricted to a per capita income of 8.0 and the next 20% just above them with 11.8, while the highest or the top 10% of the population enjoys a per capita income of 42.8 and thus have access to all social facilities including political power.
It is within such massive and undisputed disparity that this society is ignorant and apathetic about their health and their children’s education.
Health in the government sector is one area that is under heavy fire, mainly for corruption as being reason for its serious slump in quality, efficiency and availability as a service. People have been told and is made to believe that its the politician head as minister who is always at fault, while it is not the “only” and the major issue.
Will a red shirted, supposedly honest comrade substituted as minister within this set up, solve the health issue in this country ? Its far from a “single person” issue. Its a systemic chaos, where professionals and technicians in the sector are also corrupt and don’t stick to their basic responsibilities. Most who should be in their hospital ‘wards’, are busy “channelling” patients for big money at private clinics. Most who have to be in their labs and machines, are handling private work in business medical centres. Most don’t even declare their incomes proper, while the GMOA accuses politicians and monopolises its magnified power for the sake of its membership only.
There is no health planning even at provincial level where health is a devolved subject under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The health sector unions including the GMOA are never in favour of such ‘provincialisation’ of the health sector and therefore don’t contribute for provincial development, in their own health sector that would benefit them as well.
Corruption is rampant in this health sector in very many forms and at all levels with top administrators also involved. Top administrators and the many health sector unions don’t therefore ask for a “national health plan” that would base the hospital and the medical practitioner on a “Referral” system. One that would allow general practitioners and the out-patient departments to play a vital role in hospitals, that would then make “specialists” less important and this obese “private channelling” allowed for government employed specialists to lose weight.
Who would discuss these issues publicly ? Who would propose their plan of recovery for the health sector ? Who would, for that matter ask for such planning ? Not this society, for sure.
So is it with education in this country. Any person with some money and a bank guarantee to raise loans for investment, could open up a business for “child education” and label it an “international school”. Have they got any regulatory mechanism that lays down standards on teaching, facilities necessary, management, fees and recruitment ? None for sure. That is another business at large in a society that is unable to cope with the education mess, with urban middle class parents wanting to have their own private salvation.
Public education is definitely in a mess. The central ministry nor the provincial ministries have answers for even Grade I (one) admissions. Nor can they even organise a mid term schools’ exam, efficiently and without corruption.
Its the system again that needs complete overhaul and not, any more change of faces. In general, the present population of pupils sitting the G.C.E. O/L exam totals over 500,000, including private admissions. According to the Examination Department, at national level, over 51% of them don’t qualify for A/L studies.
To talk about schools’ candidates, in educational zones like Bibile, the percentage qualifying for A/L studies and almost all in the Arts stream is just 34.08%, in Passara its 34.76%, in Dimbulagala its 31.73%, in Galenbindunuweva its 33.73% and it goes on that way in practically all rural areas.
After the G.C.E A/L examination in an education system that does not talk of a strong tertiary level, again only about 20,000 students are admitted for universities that don’t in effect provide degrees which make graduates competent for employment. That again leaves the question, what is the fate of the 500,000 children who sat the O/L exam, minus the 20,000 admitted to universities, who are never taken care of within this “Free” education ?
From that huge number, well over 64% are from the rural society and that numbers over 320,000 children each year. Where do they go in an economy that can not absorb them into economically viable livelihood projects ? Its obvious therefore, we don’t have any poverty alleviation in reducing the numbers living on Samurdhi support.
None of it is discussed in this society and certainly not on election platforms that only tell people the “opposites” are weak, are corrupt and are worse. No explanations given nor asked for. Election platforms, TV talk shows and media interventions with political “stars and celebrities” are entertainment at a cost, most voters habitually enjoy. That for sure leaves the people without alternatives they are not provided with and they never ask for.
With all that social ignorance, impotence and disregard, the next most important question this society would have to answer is, what relevance have “free and fair” elections in deciding winners without programmes ? Without alternatives ? This society is ready to live with any kleptocracy, never mind its colour.
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I’m a teacher with experience in both the public and the private sectors. Your observations are timely, and the connections you have drawn between chaos in education and our inability to vote sensibly is only all too valid.
Appeal to the Government : You may be able, for now survive like this. But the day of reckoning may not be all that far off. “You can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Please, we are peace loving people; we don’t want a revolution a la Francecaise 1789.
You raise some very good points – thank you. It is sad that the things that should matter do not appear on the agenda of the politics of our country.
“That again leaves the question, what is the fate of the 500,000 children who sat the O/L exam, minus the 20,000 admitted to universities”
Presumably they leave school and go on to learn some trade that will get them into employment: agriculture, small business, nursing, three-wheeler driving, army and, well, may be even politics. There is no point in educating everyone to university levels. The party in power in the UK, for example, has a target of getting 50% of 18 year-olds to go to university. They are yet to achieve that – now realising they can’t even afford it, but the flaws in that policy are beginning to show in a different way. Industry is complaining that these graduates are unemployable. A big fraction of them are getting Mickey Mouse degrees with which they are actually at a severe disadvantage when they graduate and face the job market. It would have been much better had they left formal education at 16 and joined apprenticeship schemes to become butchers, bakers and candle-stick makers!
You’re only one in a million, so why bother to vote, to speak up, to get involved, to commit yourself? German author Hans Habe answers this way: “The world is one percent good, one percent bad, and 98 percent neutral, and this is why what individuals do is important.
In the case of Sri Lanka, there is a 69 percent vocal majority and a 31 percent powerless minority. And a situation where the President is elected only from the 69 percent vocal majority, and never from the 31 percent powerless minority!
Now the 64 million dollar question is, WHY VOTE when the henchmen and henchwomen of the Royal Family eventually SELECTS who WINS and who LOSES…and by how much they win by at the counting centres.
The only way forward is for this country to be once again administered by Britain or some other 1st world country. Until then, Sri Lanka will meander along as a ‘Can’t be developed country,’ ruled by an oriental despot and his Royal Family of 300+.
the article is an eye opener to those who are going to steer the country by grabing power by hook or by crook.it is a great plight that the people in Sri lanka are still not interested in questioning the rulers about their plan to resove burning issues such as education ,health etc,,etc.but to vote with know knowedge of those things.
A long overdue piece of frank writing which in theory ought to engage more discussion and debate as regards policies to deal with mounting political, social and economic problems, given also an escalating population growth. In practice however attention in more recent decades the main issue at the hustings has been on how to win and get to power at any cost while issues affecting people have been very much on the backburner. Besides the trend has been to concentrate on personal attacks of contestants which seems to attract more immediate attention.
The mega problems inherited after 3 decades of internal warring are grave indeed. How each political party hopes to tackle them, let alone overcome them, has yet to be unravelled in the short time before the next polling date. The writer has enumerated some of the sectors where obvious deficiciencies have become noticeable. What is also relevant is the economic growth sector which in the ultimate analysis has to underpin the social and political secctors. Somehow planned development over fixed time horizons has been replaced by shorter periods with the advent of free market economics since the 1980s. Whether this is the most desirable for developing countries remains to be seen given the free fall of the state of the economies in the West.
As for rampant corruption the remedies were spelt out by Presidential contender Sarath Fonseka but it failed to fly with the voters! However there was a time when the special institution set up fro the purpose- the Bribery Commission- was very active and had the situation very much under control. What is one to say when even the Auditor General’s scrutiny into public accounts has fallen by the wayside? Its is a pretty desperate situation the cost of which will have to be borne ultimately by the people and the taxpayers, not the politicians.
it seems that some people dont mind to be ruled by a royal family as longs as they have a white skin……………
In any true democracy, the voters have a democratic right to know the truth about important issues, to understand them, to be alert to stark realities and express their decision. The purpose of democracy is to be transparent and lead the people to make the right decisions.
In a survey conducted by “Daily Mirror” newspaper in Sri Lanka(SL) about a few weeks before the presidential election, about 84 percent of the populace expressed openly their desire that the “ethnic problem” should be addressed. Yet, the presidential candidates of UNF and UPFA were adamantly silent.
The unexplained truth of the “ethnic problem” is based on Vaddukoddai resolution of 1976, there was an independence war -not a separatist war – with a view to establish Tamil Eelam(TE). And the political resistance against the colonists in Colombo has now grown to unprecedented high levels, both internally and internationally, amongst the Tamil “citizenry”.
There are even absolute parallels between “Eelam war” and the war for independence in America.
The “Battle of Bunker Hill” was in 1843 in America and the massacre of 5 civilians in Boston by the colonial forces is still called “Boston Massacre”.
In “Eelam war” the “Battle of Mullaitivu” was in 2009 and the massacre of 22000 to 40000 Tamil civilians by the colonial forces is called “Mullaitivu Massacre”.
The voters desired an expression of an appropriate democratic solution to this very serious “ethnic problem” but was denied.
The baiscs of democracy were thus openly violated and it was not an election but a contest between two persons whose ego was out of control. Appropriately, the British Commonwealth termed the election as “not democratic”.
Last week, there was another sting on the tail for democracy in SL. The “Buddhist” prelates wrote to president Rajapakse about the arrest of Sarath Fonseka and said that they “have a right to interfere in the coutry’s affairs”.
In true democracy, the prelates have the same rights like any other voter.
Surely, the prelates have a piritual obligation to speak out for justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with all the people. They also have a responsibility to teach the people to overcome fear by love and eliminate material greed.
Love casts out fear and hatred. Spiritually, love and fear cannot co-exist. Love lavishes out and is never greedy.
But during the past 60 years, the monks created unwanted fear, panic and jitterness amongst the Sinhalese against the legitimate rights of self governance and self determination of Tamils. Monks also promoted Sinhala greed for land and political power in Tamil homeland.
Both acts, completely unspiritual, caused hatred, violence and brutal war in the island; disturbing peace and stability. And injustice was promoted, a reason for the arrest of Fonseka.
A man reaps waht he sows is a spiritual law.
I love monks. We all must love them. But it is not possible to make sense out of democratic and spiritual nonsense.
What SL needs is sensible democracy and spirituality.
Dear Thambipillai;
You are repenting slowly for the wrongs done in haste. Now give up unjustifiable and unrealistic goal of Eelam. No one can change realities by repeated chanting of ambitions. One should only think of reasonable ambitions. Your ambitions will never be fulfilled. I think even in your next birth you will not stop the chanting of the same idea over and over again.
In away I like you very much. You never give up your effort. Solo fighter.
Hail the Bravo!
This is an important moment in the history of the country.It is a time to evaluate what was done in the past and rebuild our country finally looking to “A Future”. We should be able to rescue our own expectations; like it or not we are functioning as a democracy. However, there are several kinds of democracies.
The President was elected for a second term which represents the level of trust given by the voters to his leadership capacity. There are visions of renewal that have been entrusted to him and through him to the politicians who will discuss and propose solutions regarding improving the social and economic standards of this country. It seems to be we are immersed in a form of democracy known as “Delegative Democracy”.
Guillermo O’Donnell , the Academic Director of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies is a well known authority on the topic of “Delegative Democracy”.
O’ Donnell explains the term:
“Delegative democracies are grounded on one basic premise: he/she (Indira Gandhi, Corazón Aquino, and Isabel Perón) who wins a presidential election is enabled to govern the country as he/she sees fit, and to the extent that existing power relations allow, for the term to which he/she has been elected. The President is the embodiment of the nation and the main custodian of the national interest, which it is incumbent upon him to define. What he does in government does not need to bear any resemblance to what he said or promised during the electoral campaign—he has been authorized to govern as he sees fit.”
. “Delegative democracy is not alien to the democratic tradition. Actually, it is more democratic, but less liberal, than representative democracy. DD is strongly majoritarian…”
It is then important to remember than in the context of clean elections, it is a majority that empowers somebody to become “their Leader”.
There are many implications as a consequence of this “delegation” of power.
Christopher Larkins comments on these issues in his article “The Judiciary and Delegative Dermocracy in Argentina”,(JSTOR Comparative Politics, Vol. 30, No. 4 ,Jul., 1998, pp. 423-442) taking into account the election of former president Carlos Menem whose style was described as an extreme form of “Presidentialism”.
Coming back to O’ Donnell he continues to describe DDs as very emotional as they are based in the role played by the “Winner of the elections” and the voters are perceived as mere spectators after casting their votes.
Do we need to search for more characteristics???