The ‘Promising Season’ is upon us once again. We are being treated to cartloads of promises. Unfortunately for us these manifestos are not legally binding and quite often these manifestos are not worth the paper they are written on. We the people of course are aware that we should not take either the politicians or their promises seriously. Nevertheless we could at least see from these manifestos the extent to which these political parties are sensitive to our priorities.

In recent times, we the people, have been demanding the enthronement of the rule of law, independent national institutions, the right to information, accountability of the executive, reform of the electoral system and a curb on election expenses, the non nomination of persons of disrepute as candidates and a clean-up of politics, respect for core values of our people and last but not least a settlement of the so-called national problem so that the minorities could live in dignity and in security as equal citizens. In this regard it has been proposed that the Equal Opportunities Bill be re-introduced to avoid another tragedy.

The UNP and the JVP in their manifestos have placed emphasis on re-establishing the rule of law and reforming the legal system. Both parties seek to have the 17th Amendment implemented which we the people seek to have implemented even in an amended form and to ensure that we have national institutions independent of political control. These parties also seek withdrawal of emergency regulations. They also wish to grant relief to “the suffering people”, the public servants, farmers, private sector employees and pensioners.

We have also the United Socialist Party and its “anti capitalist socialist programme for workers and the oppressed”. The government for its part has its Mahinda Chinthanaya. Into this ‘mallung’ of manifestos we have the new Sri Lanka National Congress led by Milinda Moragoda coming up with “An Agenda to influence the UPFA”, under whose umbrella they are fielding a few candidates.

The agenda does make interesting reading. Its first commitment it says is to help instill a political culture which respects the citizen. The political culture in our country today is the culture of the slum.

Politics in this country is today a blood sport-governed by the rules of the slum — where the criminal underworld rules and where the scum of our society predominate. Politicians were for some years the patrons of the scum but the wheel appears to have turned and the scum from the slums, with their values, have begun to lord it over the politicians. Some have even become politicians.

But it was not always like this, yes during the time of the Ceylon National Congress politics was value driven; the politician valued his self respect. That was a time when our politicians both of the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ would stand-up and defend unswerving civic commitments. Such a cadre of politicians would stand-up for a core of such progressive convictions; defending areas of national sovereignty in general, irrespective of personal self-aggrandizement considerations.

Almost all our politicians of yore came to serve and almost all of them pauperized themselves. I do hope the Sri Lanka National Congress is committed to restoring those values. We also need a commitment to protecting and enhancing national unity and integrity, establishing independent national institutions and above all fostering the social revolution which began with universal suffrage and free education and has made ours the most egalitarian society in South Asia

Moragoda, the leader of the SLNC, has decried the increasingly expensive, wasteful and vulgar campaigning, including the putting up of posters and cutouts and in the engaging of vitriolic rhetoric or character assassination from public platforms. There must be a legal limit on election expenditure and declarations (as in the US and the UK and other democracies) as to the source of such funds. My thoughts go back to the two elections in 1960, when the putting up of posters etc., were unlawful and there was a code of conduct and election expenses had to be declared.

The election of March 1960 was a history making one, when the Prime Minister (that truly great democratic politician) Wijenanda Dahanayake conducted the cleanest election we have held in this country. It would be recalled that he himself lost his seat and left that same night for home by the late bus from outside Temple Trees. Such were the politicians of yesteryear. Those were also times when politicians were unseated by court for having exceeded stipulated election expenses. To what depths have we deteriorated today. Political parties must stop giving nominations to criminals and people of low repute.

Let us now examine some aspects of their Agenda for influencing the government: They seek to change the political culture prevailing in this country; and among the initiatives/goals they have set out are, to: Transform our angry society into a compassionate one, Work with religious leaders to create a new political culture, Encourage civil society movements and organisations to become partners in building our nation, set up a social and economic council consisting of respected religious leaders and eminent members of civil society to develop and implement a strategy for national reconciliation and consensus-building processes, Unite people, not divide communities. Absolutely laudable goals that need to be supported, for human behaviour cannot easily be improved.

The Agenda also refers to the importance of creating and empowering ‘Residents Associations’, this is certainly much overdue; we need not only ‘Residents Associations’ but also Community Policing to go with it; for instance in Wellawatte there should be at least 20 police posts, one post covering three lanes. The police officers could work with the Residents Associations to prevent crime. If they win the confidence of the public they would also obtain valuable information for crime prevention.

The SLNC has also listed “Fighting crime, drugs and alcoholism”. I do wish them luck on that; whilst preventing crime may be feasible, as for taking on the drug barons, some of whom are politicians, that certainly is another story considering the fact that drugs are a multi-million rupee business in Sri Lanka. It is nevertheless a worthy cause and goal, to create a drug free country.

The SLNC also seeks to end the politics of patronage and break the cycle of hatred and political revenge and to transform our angry society into a compassionate one. They hope to work with religious leaders to create a new political culture. Let me ask the question what have our religious leaders been doing all these years? We claim to be a Buddhist country but the message of the Buddha is only given lip service. It is indeed an insult to the Buddha to say that ours is a Buddhist country. I find no fault in some politicians being optimists but our religious leaders have failed to end hatred and revenge, we need to live our religion and that to me seems something unattainable, for we are Buddhists only in name. Politicians paying pooja to Buddhist monks will not serve to change our society.

An extremely important area which the ‘Agenda’ addresses is the matter of ‘Corruption’, that of course cannot be wiped out from the face of planet Earth, but we certainly should seek to minimise it. It was only after 1977 and the big projects that corruption went into a gallop; the commission system has indeed been refined (if that’s the word) today. Both, ‘the giver’ who seeks to advance his business and the ‘taker’ who may be unable to resist the temptation, are both guilty. Let us, as the SLNC suggests, have the Right to Information Act. This is indeed a first step and as the Agenda suggests, creates space and encourages civil society to actively participate in the “right to know” process, with adequate safeguards for national security and legitimate privacy concerns. This will create the transparency so necessary to fight corruption. We must also have all those in public office declare their assets and those of their families. We must also amend the Bribery Act to enable the Commission to take note of all instances of corruption, not just those formally brought to the attention of the Commission. In this regard I regret to note that The Agenda of the SLNC does not specifically mention its commitment to the principle contained in the 17th Amendment, namely to establish independent national institutions. The Agenda calls for the enactment of a Victims and Witness Protection Bill and the streamlining of the criminal justice process. I do hope that they have in mind the re-introduction of the Administration of Justice Law which is in the interest of the litigant and accords with the concept of Justice. We must enthrone the Rule of Law in this country.

The Agenda also calls for a credible devolution framework that meets the aspirations and addresses the grievances of all communities particularly those living in the Northern and Eastern Provinces; there is no question that we must address the grievances of the minorities without further delay. They must be made to feel that they are also equal citizens of this country, towards that end we need without further delay to introduce the Equal Opportunities Bill once again. This is a must, for the minorities in our country must be able to live with dignity, in security and as equal citizens in this country which is as much theirs as it is ours.

I am somewhat disappointed that the SLNC has not spelled out their thoughts on the management of our foreign relations, a most vital matter. Recent years has seen a complete mismanagement of our foreign relations. We have had a whole host of spokesman on foreign affairs, all we have done successfully is to have both confused and antagonised many countries with whom we need to have the best of political relations to advance our economic interest. We have been fortunate in that we have reaped an unintended benefit from our close relationship with China, when the US was compelled to rethink their policy towards this country.

We however cannot leave anything to fortune, we need to get our act together, the President himself should take charge of Defence and Foreign Affairs and have an appointed MP, who has no constituency obligations, as ‘Senior Minister for Foreign Affairs’ attached to the President’s Office to do the leg work. I would even suggest that the President have a permanent Cabinet Sub Committee with the Foreign Ministry serving as its secretariat, to coordinate our foreign relations. The SLNC should make a proposal to this effect and also to have a Foreign Service Act to protect and professionalise the Foreign Service in the interest of the country.

With the Indian Ocean acquiring a new importance to India, China and the US , and our strategic location, a new chapter in geo-politics is unfolding. The seabed resources in our Special Economic Zone, which we do not have the capacity presently to exploit and the availability of gas in the Bay of Bengal dictates that our future is linked to the politics of the Indian Ocean. We would therefore need the most professional and competent to manage our foreign relations. I do hope our future governments would give this matter serious consideration.