After a period of political turbulence, normalcy has been restored thanks to the flexibility displayed by the top leaders by settling issues with an attitude of give and take. While President Maithripala Sirisena can be happy about the conciliatory policy adopted by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe during prolonged consultations to select Cabinet of ministers, the latter can be happy about the possibility of carrying out the policy implementation that was halted nearly two months ago.
Prime Minister can continue with his economic development package as his trusted colleagues are at the helm of related ministries. While Mr. Wickremesinghe holds the ministries of Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs other ministries related to economic and finance are held by Mangala Samaraweera (Minister of Finance) Lakshman Kiriella (Minister of Public Enterprise Development) and Malik Samarawickrema (Minister of Development Strategies). With this arrangement, Mr. Wickremesinghe will be able to continue to implement his economic plans unhindered.
New Cabinet
President Sirisena too is in a position to work with the new Cabinet, of which he is the chair, without any problems as the ruling United National Party (UNP) agreed to leave out controversial persons such as Sarath Fonseka, Palitha Ranga Bandara and the UPFA former ministers who wanted to cross over and obtain ministries. They include Wijithamuni Soysa, Piyasena Gamage and Indika Bandaranayake.
Although the current government is a single party government, it could continue to work towards establishing a new political culture where the two national parties cohabitate in a government of good governance forgetting their political rivalries because President Sirisena and Premier Wickremesinghe have shown they could work together despite policy differences.
The media highlighted some parts of President Sirisena’s speech after swearing-in of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe where he stressed the policy differences between the two. At the same time, President Sirisena wished the new Prime Minister well and expressed his cooperation. “Hon. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Madam Wickremesinghe and Hon. Members of the Parliament. I extend my best wishes to the Prime Minister and extend my blessings to him to receive courage to fulfill the duties of the post of Prime Minister in a successful manner,” he said.
President Sirisena added that differences between political leaders could be solved through discussions.
“I am happy that political parties and leaders contributed to resolve this crisis. I thank Hon. Speaker, for discussing to resolve this issue. You all came to this office. Likewise, all of them, including Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the Podujana Peramuna, came together. The UNF leaders and TNA leaders also extended support. I see this as the spirit of cooperation in a democratic country. Even though whatever facts will be discussed in streets, there should be a humanitarian approach to solve problems sitting together,” he stressed.
Fraudulent deals and corrupt practices
President Sirisena has outlined his agenda from the beginning. The citizens of the country elected Maithripala Sirisena on January 8, 2015 to create a very clean state rule and to usher in a pure and clean state, to strengthen law and order, establish a fair society and to act against of corruption, abuse of power, bribery and fraud. As the Head of the Cabinet he will continue to monitor government activities and ensure fraudulent deals and corrupt practices would not take place.
However we have to see the practical side. The bitter experiences in the last three and half years show that it is extremely difficult for the two major national parties to govern together. However, political analysts are of the opinion that the failure of the UNP-SLFP cohabitation was mainly due to lack of a common programme and a policy framework.
The only programme the two parties had was the first 100 day programme. After that there was no common programme and what the two parties did was to divide the government into two and UNP managed their ministries while the SLFP controlled the ministries allocated to their party. The clashes took place in overlapping areas.
What the nation learned in the failure of first national government of 2015-18 was the need for a solid programme for a unity government to succeed. It also needs the leaders who place the country and the people first and not the personal interests or party interests.
The task before President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe is to get the country out of the financial crisis, debt burden and retarded economic growth and ensure speedy recovery. President Sirisena can be satisfied with the growth in the agriculture sector during the last quarter, during which all other sectors failed.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe will be able to get maximum support from the West for speedy development. The government will not face threats of possible removal of General System of Presences (GSP) Plus concessions for our exports to Europe and United States. We will be able to continue our fish exports to Europe.
The country will get the US$ 480 million grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation in the United States from 2019.
With these positive signals, the government should be able to take vigorous action to speedy economic revival and ensure betterment of the people. What is essential is to ensure genuine political desire to cooperate.
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