Investors seek a secure environment to invest their money, expecting better returns and as a corollary to better investment, an economy set to thrive. During the past five years, investor confidence became zero in the backdrop of the Yahapalanaya’s antics and the economy fell flat as a consequence.
It is the responsibility of the Government and the people to create an investment friendly environment to attract investors to the country so that they can invest their capital or savings, expecting better returns, thereby ushering in development by way of gainful employment for the people and in turn, better living standards.
What happened in the country during the past five years should be an eye-opener to any one who aspires to help create a prosperous country.
First and foremost: those who lived off foreign funded Non-governmental Organisations crept into Governance - rather the Government had to assimilate them into governance due to the lack of its foresight and a pragmatic program to govern and develop the country - under an erroneous assumption that they would provide a viable alternative to the government machinery propelled by government officials.
It was the manna from heaven for the NGO cohort waiting to get any given opportunity to step into the governance structure to fulfill the contract offered by their predatory masters. They were veritable ‘contract killers’ of governance and the economy and were kept waiting by their funders to ruin the island nation strategically important for global super powers to maintain their supremacy in the world, who used soft power initially to gain moral high ground, failing which they peddled coercive diplomacy. When this too failed they tried to use military might to bring stable countries to their knees. Imperialist countries employ NGOs to proselytise people of strategically important countries in seemingly harmless, but strategically shrewd doctrines to run their agendas of weakening governments and eventually the states.
There are innumerable examples throughout history to prove this fact, the most recent being dethroning of Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and the failed attempt to evict Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to transplant their ‘democracy’ in those countries by installing puppet governments to plunder resources so as to, maintain the high living standards of the people of imperialist nations.
Now, moral crusaders pontificating democratic values have transplanted warped versions of democracy in those countries where tribal wars erupt among warlords on the spur of the moment to gain control over regional territories. The objectives of those with vested interests have been fulfilled, and they can carry out plundering of resources at ease in countries thus made unstable.
The word ‘democracy’ has, therefore, come to be so synonymous with dystopian connotations that the concept of ‘democracy’ seems to have become an existential threat to countries endowed with resources or situated in strategically important locations, thereby terrifying citizens.
During the past five years, incompetency was a catchet as the Yahapalanaya coalition could not absorb educated and talented people into governance, consequent to its antipathy to pragmatism and hauling government officials before courts on flimsy grounds, making the educated opt out of the governance structure. The country witnessed a period of virtual anarchy in almost every sphere with the legal domain being made to appear hyperactive with special courts, to contain, albeit unsuccessfully, political opponents, especially emerging leaders. Yahapalanaya panjandrums led the masses down the garden path by showing them phoney investment projects going to the extent of promising the youth with automobiles to commute in comfort and by promising them free wi-fi.
The people, being fed up with the Yahapalanaya’s show pieces, took their first steps to seek stability at the Local Council election in 2018 by giving an overwhelming mandate to the newly formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. The people saw that the new party had among its party members those who could deliver what the country needed, with the country’s intelligentsia having been accorded its due place in the party.
Meanwhile, the party cemented its credibility at the grassroots level while the Yahapalanaya’s antisocial antics disillusioned the masses at the other end. Sensing the wrath of the people on the ruling coalition at an impending election, they sought every opportunity to postpone the presidential election, even going to the extent of seeking an opportunity to abrogate the presidency altogether. The continuation of their anarchist project even in the wake of the Easter Sunday bombings further disillusioned the masses already battered by the Yahapalanaya democracy, who in the meantime, saw a methodical, disciplined and intellectually-oriented and tech-savvy character who had substantiated his credentials with a penchant to walk the talk.
The people reposed confidence in him and got him elected by an overwhelming majority at the presidential election, raising expectations for political stability in the country. Though President Gotabaya Rajapaksa received a resounding mandate, he is likely to face a snag in implementing his program adumbarated in his campaign trail, in the august (bogus) assembly where if the opposition has the majority and various media conferences held by reactionary elements and the antagonistic insinuations of the legislative hierarchy are anything to go by.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon the people to clean the Legislature that has earned the popular epithet, the Augean stable - transforming it from the bogus assembly to an august assembly with public representatives who are concerned about the welfare of the people, social progress, security and the development of the country - before the proverbial horse has bolted, at the next opportunity coming their way with the parliamentary election to be called for within months.
Progressive forces have a great role to play in mustering support to give the President a majority, not a simple majority, but a 2/3rds majority in Parliament, especially to untie the constitutional Gordian knot wrought by the capitulationist Yahapalanaites at the behest of the ravenous NGO cohort to dissolve the Sri Lankan state.
The constitution was mangled through the 19th Amendment deforming its original character of the all unifying presidential system, creating multiple power centvers with each pulling in its own direction in governance and setting up ‘independent commissions’, such as the constitutional council, filling their membership with cherry-picked political lackeys into the bargain.
It is only with such mandate the President will be empowered to reverse the Yahapalanaya’s destructive project and take steps to form a stable country which is a primary requisite to create an investment friendly milieu, aiming at economic development.
China is constuctive in terms of investors’ confidence as it has been the most trusted country for investors with modern infrastructure, minimum political or social upheavals and with a trained and skilled labour force.
As the President was elected with much hope, all the people who aspire to be living in a country with a modern outlook should extend their support to him who has already substantiated his management credentials.