Who could have been Sri Lanka’s Muhammad Yunus if Ranil did not take over?

• Though Sri Lankan protests have striking similarities with those in Bangladesh, there are vast differences beneath
• Prof Yunus’s challenge would be introducing political reforms while not squandering Ms Hasina’s economic success
• Mahinda Rajapaksa, who lost after ten years in power, probably has more in common with Sheikh Hasina than Gota
• Sri Lanka’s primary problem is economic stagnation due to a lack of political will for economic reforms

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in last week as the interim leader of Bangladesh, succeeding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled the country and sought refuge in India. 

Prof Yunus’s appointment was a concession granted to student protestors who rejected a military-led government earlier. A pioneer in microfinance, which has since been emulated across the globe, and for which he also won the Nobel Prize for Economics, Prof Yunus is the closest Bangladesh could get to a ‘philosopher’s king,” Plato’s ideal form of a ruler who combines philosophical skills and temperament with political power. 

That might also be the ideal form of government for the developing world states. However, such rulers do not usually emerge from elections since voters tend to vote for people who talk like them, act like them, and exploit common ignorance and prejudices to their advantage. If there is a distant example of such a system, that would be the Chinese Communist Party’s apex decision-making body,  the Politburo Standing Committee, staffed with CCP technocrats or probably Singapore’s Cabinet, similarly staffed. However, they either have highly choreographed elections or no elections at all. 

Sri Lanka’s Muhammad Yunus moment

There has been much grumble in the political platforms in Sri Lanka, where similar protests forced the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government, that the country was deprived of its Muhammad Yunus moment, there for the opportunity for ‘a complete system change’ due to Ranil Wickremesinghe, who succeeded Gota with the blessing of the old guard. 

Lalkantha, a JVP stalwart, was on record saying in a public gathering that JVP wanted to storm Parliament, like the Bangladeshi students did, but was opposed by the other disparate stakeholders of Aragayala. It is unclear how the political vacuum created by a forced dissolution of Parliament could have been filled. However, some of the vocal and JVP and Peratugami-affiliated Aragalaya activists demanded that a citizens council be set up. Though it sounds innocuous, that was a dangerous idea that could have left untrammelled state power with newbies, daydreamers, sociopaths and megalomaniacs. Wherever it was tried before, it ended up with  Jacobian terror or destruction of the economy, generally both in varying proportions. 

Though Sri Lankan protests have striking similarities with those in Bangladesh,  there are vast differences beneath. 

First, as I mentioned last week, Sri Lankan protests were an anomaly in the history of protests, for its president was toppled, and the president’s house was stormed without the government firing a single live bullet for the five months of demonstrations. In Bangladesh, it was a bloodbath.

Second, they differ in terms of future challenges and solutions. Ms Hasina was in power for 15 years, effectively turning the state into her fiefdom. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in power for barely three years. He could well have followed the path taken by peer autocrats if he had been in power much longer. (His introduction of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution was a disturbing first step.)  Mahinda Rajapaksa, who lost after ten years in power, probably has more in common with Sheikh Hasina than Gota. Yahapalanaya, that succeeded him, sacked his acolyte of a chief justice, terming him as an imposter, just like Bangladesh did last week.

Therefore, the term complete system change in Sri Lanka is illusive, and any proposition to dismantle the whole system to achieve it is dangerous. Interestingly, what is perhaps the most needed, such as corruption-busting legislations and procurement guidelines, were made into law by Ranil Wickremesinghe, though he was not recognised for bringing in that system change.

Sri Lanka’s primary problem is economic stagnation due to a lack of political will for economic reforms.

Hyperventilating over political reforms and a new constitution is both a distraction and a misreading of the country’s primary problem. Whereas in Bangladesh, immediate fixes would be political, including dismantling the entrenched Hasina grip on all state organs.

Bangladesh’s Yahapalana moment

This brings Bangladesh to Sri Lanka’s Yahapalanaya moment. And there is a hitch. Yahapalanaya, though it introduced salient political and constitutional reforms, was also a colossal economic failure. During that, the Sri Lankan economy, which had previously grown at 6.5 % annual growth over the past decade of the Mahinda Rajapaksa, lost its momentum, effectively leading to the economic collapse that followed. Prof Yunus’s challenge would be introducing political reforms while not squandering Ms Hasina’s economic success. That is not an easy feat to pull off, as Sri Lankan experience would reveal. That could well be Sajith Premadasa’s challenge if he ever wins the presidential election. 

Finally, who could have been Sri Lanka’s Muhammad Yunus, had not Ranil robbed them of that opportunity? A few names were suggested back then. One of the earliest was TNA MP Sumanthiran. The choice was probably not out of love for minorities but for selfish reasons, such that Sumanthiran does not pose an electoral threat to either of the leading party candidates in a future presidential election. But, Sumanthiran starts from the wrong starting point of misreading an economic crisis in politics. Whether he has the political courage to implement painful economic reforms, which the incumbent did, is a moot point. So is how soon he would become a prisoner of disparate stakeholders who have no sense of urgency in fixing the economic crisis. That was even before he became a target of racist dog whistlers in the South.

Another interesting candidate was then Bar Association President Saliya Pieris. What he could have brought to the table was unclear, except that he could have ended up being Julie Chung’s pet.

Another name was Karu Jayasuriya, a decent politician, probably one of the few incorruptible ones, but too old. He could have become a figurehead of a feuding cabal of local actors.

Then there were far more sinister choices mooted behind the curtain, such as hyper-politicised former chief justice Sarath N Silva, the architect of some of the most outrageous court rulings that continue to haunt the country.
Now tell me, which of these folks could have been your choice to lead the country out of its worst economic crisis?

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