Moral Power Is A Corrective To Bad Government

By Dr Jehan Perera -Monday, July 22, 2013

The continued leaching of the opposition’s support base can be seen in two of the three provinces in which provincial council elections are scheduled to be held.  In both the Central and North Western provinces local level members of the opposition parties are lining up to obtain membership in the ruling power.  They are presumably not anticipating an opposition victory, and are hoping by their crossover to play a role in the new provincial administrations.  They have seen their seniors in their political parties defect to the government and benefit tremendously, and wish to do the same.

However, in the Northern Province the situation is significantly different.  The announcement that former Supreme Court judge C. V. Wigneswaran will be the TNA’s chief ministerial candidate has given the moral upper hand to the opposition.  Unlike the government which is even resorting to former LTTE leaders to join its candidate list, the TNA has selected a candidate who has a non-violent and service-oriented past.  The future administration of the Northern Province may be able to set an example by having higher standards of politicians that will persuade the rest of the country to emulate them.

Undoubtedly it will be a challenge for the opposition to be able to find chief ministerial candidates and other candidates of comparable quality to uplift local level politics and also national politics.  Those of education and refinement seem to have fled from politics.  At the present time the stock of politicians, especially those at the local level, but also those at the national level, is abysmally low.  They are being accused of various crimes, and on rare occasions convicted of them too, although the breakdown of independent institutions and the system of checks and balances does not contribute to the process of accountability on the government side.

The frustration at the opposition’s inability to get the better of the government at elections is also continuing to grow amongst those thinking and progressive sections of the population who see the need for a new government to meet their expectations.  This was evident at a discussion organized by UNP Parliamentarian Eran Wickramaratne which took place at the Institute of Chartered Accountants.  The hall was filled with younger professionals and businesspersons who represent the cutting edge of the country’s economic and political future.

Undoubtedly the key attraction at the discussion was UNP and opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who showed a gutsy readiness to face a disappointed constituency at an open forum.  He took the opportunity to explain the outlines of his party’s proposals for a new constitution for the country.  The UNP has been taking this set of proposals to leaders in other sectors, such as the religious communities, to get their blessings.  However, what generated the most amount of impassioned discussion was the issue of the opposition’s inability to win elections.

Some of those in the audience were openly critical of the opposition leader.  A comparison was drawn to the CEO of a company that is continuously making losses, and whether the Board of Directors and shareholders would long tolerate this situation.

To his credit, the opposition leader did not try and suppress the critics, but even invited them to have their say, which is not a common feature in Sri Lanka today due to the intolerance of dissent by the ruling politicians.   A truly democratic society, as against a nominal democracy, is one in which the leaders encourage their people to speak freely and express themselves, even critically, for the higher truth to emerge without suppressing them.

One of the panelists at the discussion was university lecturer Dr Deepika Udagama, and she pointed out that civil society and the people in general could not distance themselves from the problems facing the country, for it was they who voted for the politicians who lead the country.  The problem is that the government has been able to use the untrammelled power of the executive presidency to buy over, co-opt, intimidate, or eliminate those who are in the political opposition.  It is therefore able to repeatedly demonstrate its ability to win elections, as it plans to do in the forthcoming provincial elections also on that same rough and tough basis.
However, there remains cause for hope.

Amongst the audience and the large number of critics of the weakness of the opposition, were outspoken young people with a high level of education, many of them foreign educated, but still who had chosen to return to their motherland.  They showed the potential to be leaders themselves. They were not afraid to challenge the opposition leader at the forum discussion.  But the greater challenge to them is to find ways to express their concerns to the government and not only to the opposition.  The weakness of the opposition does not in any way justify the misgovernance of the government.

At the present time the opposition cannot match the government in regard to the material power that can be thrown into the political arena.  However, the government is sorely lacking in the moral power that comes from adhering in truth and spirit to the religious teachings that Sri Lankans as a South Asian people have an affinity towards.  It is said that Mahatma Gandhi combined the spiritual symbols of Indian society with personal asceticism which made for a powerful appeal to the Indian psyche.  After retiring from the judiciary, Justice Wigneswaran has steeped himself in the Hindu religious tradition, so much so that he became a representative of the Hindu religion at multi religious functions.

Religion is the repository of the highest values of all civilizations, and those who live by those values (as opposed to pretentiously wearing robes) need to be empowered.  It is perhaps no coincidence that Eran Wickramaratne who organized the open discussion, at which the UNP leadership was challenged, is the son of a Christian pastor.

There will surely be others from the different religious traditions, not least Buddhism which produced an Emperor Asoka and a King Dutugemunu, both of whom repented after years of warfare, and devoted the rest of their lives to serving their fellow beings.  If chastised by the people at the forthcoming elections, government leaders may follow suit.