Accustomed to both large scale corruption as well as empty promises of redress, Sri Lanka’s citizenry today holds its breath at something very new: real action against the big ‘sharks’ both in the current regime as well as those of the preceding one. Two major corruption reports are now in the public eye, the suspect rogues named and, concrete steps are being taken to prosecute.
True, already certain low-rung miscreants of the past regime are undergoing prosecution under the new government’s anti-corruption initiatives, but this government’s latest action targets the bigwigs both within its own ranks as well as of the previous one. Indeed, true to its ‘good governance’ promise, the National Unity coalition last week put in motion not just the judicial process to prosecute those accused in actual cases of corruption but, also, plans for new mechanisms and systems to counter the disease of corruption that has plagued the country for much of its post-Independence era.
On Thursday, on the initiative of President Maithripala Sirisena, a high level meeting of officials, experts and citizens’ action groups, including news media representatives, convened to map out a ‘national action plan’ against corruption. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has publicly announced government plans to set up a special High Court dedicated to fast tracking major corruption cases.
Citizens, now preparing to vote in islandwide local government elections, are faced with a wholly new type of governance in which not just political opponents of the past regime implicated in corruption are being prosecuted, but officials and top politicians of the present government are also to be prosecuted. Citizen-voters have grown weary of the old cycle of governance in which the ruling parties have accused and chased after politicians of former ruling parties using corruption as a weapon to counter the political opposition.
Even if those accused in famous past cases of corruption were, indeed, found guilty and punished, the fact that the guilty were the out-of-power political enemies of the incumbent regime, did little to convince the citizenry of the bona fides of the politicians in power. After all, citizens had become used to politicians and officials of incumbent, prosecuting governments then going on to fleece the country themselves. The previous, so-called ‘patriotic’ regime excelled in such fleecing, under the cover of their ‘patriotism’.
Today, having finally understood the truth of the adage that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,’ Sri Lankan voters have given the reins of government to a coalition of the two, usually rival, political parties. They did so primarily because this new political alliance promised not only to chase after former scoundrels but also after any ‘scoundrel’ found within the ranks of government.
‘Good governance’, after all, is not just about digging up past crimes of politicians and officials. As Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe both argued tirelessly in the last, pivotal, presidential and parliamentary election campaigns, the Yahapaalanaya coalition was committed to ensuring clean and efficient governance in the present and in the future.
There is, also, something else that is new, and historic, with this Yahapaalanaya regime. Those concerned citizens’ movements that arose in reaction to the previous regime’s plunder, nepotism and decadent autocracy and helped the new coalition to power have remained consistently in consultation with the new regime. Even more significant is that, unlike previous regimes where politicians were quick to forget their civil society allies in their scramble for power and its spoils, this Yahapaalanaya regime accommodated such citizens’ monitoring and listened to the criticisms of these civic groups.
Even so, much of this interaction between government and civil society, much of the exposure of current wrong-doing, has also been enabled by a newly vibrant news media. Another sign of our maturing democracy is the collaboration between news media and civil society that has enabled concerned citizens highlight their issues on numerous media platforms. Citizens gotten used to ruling personalities (and their sons) dominating the national stage are now relishing the prominence given to civic groups today as ‘the people’ raise issues on national platforms on par with the current rulers.
Hence, there have been many instances of misdemeanours or even wrong policy by governing politicians and regime officials where civic groups have protested and lobbied and received quick positive responses by those in power. Not only have wrong administrative actions been promptly corrected, but often the officials or politicians concerned have been reprimanded or even had their posts and portfolios changed or removed.
The most prominent action of Yahapaalanaya so far has been the government’s swift remedial action against top ministers and officials implicated in the Central Bank bond scam. Indeed, the unusual fact that an incumbent government was probing its own top-rankers, meant that the Bond scam probe received much more attention than the parallel, on-going probes into and prosecutions of a veritable plethora of scams accumulated during the previous regime.
The news media, unused to freely chasing after those in power, has enjoyed flexing its investigative and critical muscles in reporting the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Central Bank bond scam. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and Inquire into Serious Acts of Fraud, Corruption and Abuse of Power, State Resources and Privileges (PRECIFAC) which had received complaints of some 2,000 cases of fraud, plunder and misgovernance, in fact, got less media attention.
Readers will acknowledge that this is what ‘good governance’ really means in actual practice.
Now the PRECIFAC report is also in the public eye with at least 17 cases highlighted by the 5-member Commission.
And, the government is clearly moving fast to prosecute fast. The citizen-voter watches – excited today by this new transparency, receptivity and vigour of the current regime, but, keeping in mind that politicians’ promises are credible only when they are fulfilled.