Ceylon Today Editorial

Trumps’ Presidency – a Global Crisis?

04 January 2017

There's no doubt about the fact that political and corporate leaders in the west as a whole, and in many Asian, Pacific and South Asian nations, will watch with much anxiety the real foreign policy stances that US President-elect Donald Trump will opt for when he assumes office on 20th of this month.

Certainly his lauding of Russian President Vladimir Putin's deft move in holding back retaliation against Obama's expulsion of 35 of Putin's top diplomats in Washington raised eyebrows – and fear - in every world capital. It also reflects the new President–elect's now growing persona of a man who is not averse to holding up to ridicule not only his predecessors in office but the CIA , FBI and the entire US Intelligence structure – in addition to his painfully obvious political naivete. This is abundantly clear because one has to only consider Putin's options to know that it costs him nothing to hold back any retaliation against Washington and Obama, because the entire administration that swept away, Putin's 35 men from the US gets swept away when Trump is sworn in on 20 January and Putin would have to possibly make more changes had he opted for than in retaliation. Better to bide his time until 'friend' Trump gets comfy in the Oval Office where the new US President is set to run against the entire establishment and over 50 years of a consistent US foreign policy that he seems intent on upending even before he assumes office.

So, yes, Putin was smart but not in the way that Trump obviously presumes. In fact, by holding back a counter play, Putin was smarter than Trump perhaps gives him credit for. Putin has placed the ball squarely in Trump's court now as we will see, when Putin chooses replacements for those 35 who were sent packing from the Russian embassy and from New York's Long Island mansion that was occupied by them. Trump's learning curve might turn out to be bitterly nasty when his unrealistic, even ridiculous, apparently pacifist foreign policy options upend the US status quo in a new world order in which there's every sign of a spatial revivalist thrust by Russia, China and their allies. The Americans will have much to say about a Trump, as President, who drags the US down to the stature of a friend of men such as Assad. His de facto defence of Saddam Hussein against the Bush administration and the entire US intelligence on whose findings – not disproved to date – the US and Allies engineered the taking out of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Rubbishing US intelligence confirmation of Putin's hand in Russian hacking of the presidential election process has already angered the Americans who voted Trump into power. And when it's globally accepted that Russia does not and never will share US interests, and in fact run exactly counter to them, Trump has consistently shown he could perhaps inadvertently through his naivete undermine US global interests very dangerously and by that fact enhance the danger of global instability. US Senators are even now planning to push Congress for stronger sanctions than those imposed by Obama, but as a Trump supporter put it, "They've got the clocks, but Trump and Putin have the time and a new Congress in the wings".

The big questions are whether Trump will adopt a weak-kneed pacifist foreign policy especially with Russia and whether he will, as he has said he will, remove sanctions on Russia and even acknowledge Putin's armed annexation of the Crimea from Ukraine, a move that will put him outside the pale of political morality and bring the US into the gutters.

More worrying for world peace is whether Trump will also opt out of NATO as he has said he would, upending decades of US efforts to maintain a powerful deterrent against Russian and other expansionism. Will Trump however back Putin, along with Assad, ostensibly against the ISIS, but in effect to crush the legitimate demands of the Syrian people?

Was Putin's goal, that of ensuring a Trump victory to ensure the US pulls out of NATO and clear the way for Putin to push through his expansionist policy? It's significant that on the campaign trail Trump called NATO obsolete.NATO has been the lynchpin of American foreign policy after WW2. A stumbling block in Putin's way! Since 2008, Russia has moved troops into the former Soviet republics of Georgia and the Ukraine, and now Russia is making preparations to apparently attack Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – all members of NATO. Trump is unlikely to commit US troops to defend the Baltic States. End of NATO?

Trump has also said he sees no need for sanctions against Russia for its 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Trump calls this 'getting along' with Russia.

Daily News Editorial

Unity government and SLFP policies

04 January 2017

State Minister of Finance Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena boldly declared the other day that they of the SLFP will not allow the UNP to have its own way in the government and that SLFP policies too would be implemented through the Unity Government. Pray, what are these SLFP policies the State Minister is talking about, a section of the public who have lived under SLFP governments of the past will be inclined to ask? Is the State Minister talking about the SLFP policies adopted between 1970 and 77?

Is Abeywardena in favour of nationalisation of every business venture that caught the eye of the government on the scale that was seen under the 60-65 SLFP administration led by Madam Bandaranaike? Or does he want to go back to those dark days when people were forced to stand in long queues for a loaf bread and where even dress fabric reeking of kerosene oil was rationed? Can he recall the days when a prospective bridegroom was compelled to obtain a letter from the grama sevaka in his area in order to purchase material for his wedding kit. Or is he in favour of once again making it mandatory for people to eat rice only two days a week and for the placing of barriers to detect rice, above the stipulated quota, being transported? Is Abeywardena still yearning for the policies of the SLFP which placed restrictions on foreign travel, the import of essential goods and the creation of scarcity of almost all consumer items? Abeywardena who was a former UNP MP and a deputy minister in the 2001-2004 UNF government under Ranil Wickremesinghe cannot be unaware of the reason for the humiliating defeat suffered by the SLFP led United Front government in 1977, because he too as a young Turk of the UNP no doubt would have waxed eloquent on party election platforms about the rack and ruin the country was subjected to during that era marked by poverty, scarcity and want.

This is why former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga attempted the bold step of unshackling the SLFP from its traditional moorings and take the party away from its inward looking nature and convert it into a modern, forward looking entity. It was CBK who famously said at the time: “I was a good socialist and now I will become a good capitalist” a viewpoint that provoked the remark from Parliamentarian Dullas Alahapperuma that pakshaya vamata signal daala den dakunata harawanawa (the party that signaled to the left is now turning to the right).

CBK, to her credit, not only changed the outlook and policies of the party with respect to the economy and style of governance but also gave it a new face vis a vis ethic relations. The SLFP which was until then branded as a hardline nationalist party catering to the interests of only the majority Sinhala Buddhists, and thus was shunned by the minorities, was virtually given a new bapitism, so to speak, dispelling the notion hitherto attached to it as a racist, bigoted entity.

Mahinda Rajapaksa who succeeded her chose not to change course with regard to economic policies, sticking firmly to the open economy which he criticised strongly at one time, but failed to consolidate on gains achieved by CBK on the ethnic front with his strident nationlalist rhetoric for which he paid a heavy price on January 8.

Abeywardena would do well to do some soul searching on the consequences of the SLFP policies of the past, if indeed these are the policies he wants to implement in the Unity Government, and come to terms with reality. Simply put, the retrograde policies of the traditional SLFP is poles apart from that adopted by the UNP which is given to modern, innovative thinking and an internationalist outlook. Not for nothing has the UNP governments earned the honour of being the best administrators. Its policies are certainly not compatible with the inward looking, populist policies of the SLFP. Hence the SLFP policies of old is not going to take the country forward in this day and age. On the contrary, it could stifle progress and retard growth though certain sections of the population will be kept happy by sops thrown at them, and of course the rhetoric.

State Minister Abeywardena should also come to terms with the fact that the SLFP and UNP today are more or less on the same wavelength on economic policy and the need for external capital to develop the country. True, the state minister has to appease his party supporters, particularly drawn from the traditional SLFP, who still cherish the core principles of the party and will want to stay the course. But being a member of the Unity Government he should desist from placing obstacles in the implementation of prudent and sound economic policies, even though these may at times impose hardships on the public. After all, he was a member of the Grand Old Party and knows how things are done by the Greens.

The Island Editorial

Waiting for Godot

04 January 2017

 

Hydrophobia turns friendly, playful canines into dreadful monsters. ‘Pollsphobia’ has a similar effect on politicians as we have seen during the last several decades.

Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Faizer Mustapha acted like a real bull in a china shop on Monday, when Chairman of the Delimitation Review Committee Asoka Peiris tried to submit his outfit’s final report. Refusing to accept the document on the grounds that it had not been signed by two of the five review committee members, an irate minister locked horns with the media personnel who threw curve balls. There was no reason for him to throw such a hissy fit. The fault was his; he was trying to defend the indefensible!

However, it will be a mistake for anyone to lay the blame for Monday’s brouhaha solely at Mustapha’s doorstep. He has been acting in this manner at the behest of his political bosses.

President Maithripala Sirisena not only accepted but also praised the original report submitted by the Delimitation Committee headed by Jayalath Dissanayake. It was duly ratified by Parliament and signed by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya. But, the government made a volte-face as it was looking for an excuse to postpone the local government polls which it was not ready to face. It appointed the Asoka Peiris committee to review the Jayalath committee report obviously in a bid to delay the mini polls in the hope that it would be able to get its act together in time for the next electoral contest. But, its plans have manifestly gone awry and it is scared of an election owing to several factors such as the ignominious defeats its constituents have suffered at the first round of co-operative society elections, ever rising cost of living, mega rackets like the Central Bank bond scandal, unfulfilled pre-election pledges, rampant corruption, the absence of a development drive and the not-so-cold war within the ruling coalition between the UNP and the SLFP.

The completion of the Asoka Peiris committee report could not have come at a worse time for the government troubled by the prospect of having to face an election. The committee was left with no alternative but to finish its task and prepare its report on account of heavy flak it had drawn for the inordinate delay in completing the delimitation review process.

The only way the government could think of further delaying the local government polls was to find fault with the Asoka Peiris committee report as well. Interestingly, the two delimitation review committee members who have not signed the report are from the SLFP and the UNP!

A possible electoral setback will further weaken President Sirisena’s position in the SLFP. His loss will be the Rajapaksas’ gain. It is being argued in some quarters that the UNP is ready for the mini polls. True, statistically, it will have the edge in an electoral contest where the SLFP vote is divided between its two factions led by President Sirisena and his bête noire, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. But, it is not in a position to part company with the SLFP until 2020 as it lacks a working majority in Parliament. The political marriage of convenience between the SLFP and the UNP has not brought their members together at the grassroots level. The ruling coalition is like a pyramid with a crack going right down its middle; it is held together at the apex by the yahapalana leaders, who fear a possible Rajapaksa comeback, and the foreign governments and NGOs responsible for facilitating the 2015 regime change.

Local government elections will pit Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe against President Sirisena and a fierce competition at the grassroots level will further weaken the government’s unity; some SLFP members of the Cabinet are threatening a pullout; one has already left. This is a worrisome proposition for the UNP; it could not secure a majority of seats at the last general election in 2015, when its popularity had reached its zenith and the Rajapaksas’ chips were down as never before. It also stood to gain from President Sirisena’s all out efforts to queer the pitch for former President Rajapaksa in the parliamentary race. Thus, why the SLFP and UNP members of the Asoka Peiris committee have not signed the delimitation review report is not difficult to see.

Even if the SLFP and UNP members were to sign the Asoka Peiris committee report and Minister Mustapha had to accept it by any chance, the government would still come out with another ruse to delay the mini polls. It may get the report challenged legally or otherwise and the possibility of another committee being appointed to review the delimitation review committee report cannot be ruled out! The government knows more than one way to shoe a horse and will baulk at nothing to postpone the LG polls.

What’s up Minister Mustapha’s sleeve is not difficult to guess. He told Asoka Peiris on Monday that the review committee report should be prepared in all three languages and the latter said cynically that the task would take two more years. The government is sure to demand that the report be made available in Sinhala, English and Tamil so as to delay the mini polls further.