Leadership in the time of C-virus

They say that character is who you are when no one’s looking. Maybe it’s also what you do and say when everyone’s watching you. 

Perhaps the president was not aware that all eyes were on him. Not only that of his electorate or that of the once and future prime minister. But even the expectant eyes of those who did not vote for our stalwart – yet, that are now looking to him for sterling leadership in the time of an impending national emergency. And there are many in both camps – his champions as much as critics who feel and think he let a crisis go to waste in more senses than the politically opportune or opportunistically political. 

Losing the chance

For starters, many truly national-minded citizens who tuned in faithfully for a few words of wisdom and encouragement may have been disappointed at the president’s tenor of speech. The tone he took was not one resonant of the dynamic wartime leader who took the bull by the horns. Nor was his timbre as soothing as the beautification of cities for which he was renowned as an erstwhile strongman-bureaucrat.  But the ears were tickled by practical matters such as the more plebeian of our fellows would have desired. And lacking though it was in talk of cabbages and kings or lofty things, it was redolent with lentils and tinned fish. 

Lowering the cost

Then again, daily wage-earners in the rural periphery – perhaps even as nearby as in suburbia – would have heaved a sigh of relief at the measures announced. Where most of ‘real’ Sri Lanka lives (beyond the pale of Colombo 1’s CBD and 3, 5, 7’s café society and cocktail circuit, as well as www.social media), rice – and now, mackerel in miris and kirata parippu with pol sambol – are the staples. 

Not fine turns of phrase and yon fancy concepts. But admit it – even you can’t resist these that are merely mouth-watering rarities for you, which are the literal everyday rarer bread and butter of most islanders still struggling to make a living since the devastation of April 2019… And maybe Gota got it right at the most fundamental level. 

If the urbanites still have an axe to grind nevertheless, let it be noted that tax and rate cuts as well as a rescue package for the beleaguered private sector are bound to follow in short order.

Listening to the critics

To be fair by all concerned, it was not only the armchair warriors who were up in arms. The JVP, for one – that true political opposition and all-weather bellwether – were pulling no punches. 

“With all respect to d (sic) mandate, how poor was our president’s speech in a crisis situation. No appreciation of Health, Transport, Security workers who risk their lives. No clear guidelines for citizens & institutions. No motivation. No spirit. Only Dhal, Saman (sic) & SLPP Election campaign,” tweeted a bemused and even irate Bimal Rathnayake.

On the other hand, private sector representatives seemed to know where the kudos could or should go. One opinion leader and a representative voice of business posted this on Facebook: “We owe a debt of gratitude to our medics, the security forces and head of state – let’s keep the faith in whoever or whatever it is and be thankful for small mercies – Sri Lanka continues to be among the safest places on earth at this time…”  

Lacking the character

So the question is far from being asked and answered. Is the former defence secretary’s true mettle as a leader showing in his present lack of fire and brimstone? Is he – as alleged by some anonymous interlocutor in the comments section – a pawn or puppet of a previous past-master at politics? (I paraphrase, perhaps because both the comment was unkind and the conclusion unwarranted. Still waters run deep.) 

Or is Gotabaya Rajapaksa a man who knows his own mind and can sense the larger mood of the electorate over and above the Babel of Colombo’s babbling troubled Twitterati? Is he too, like his political partners in the project at hand, not simply playing the long game… the one in which – for whoever’s ultimate benefit (people, self or senior partner) – power is consolidated without paying too high a price?

Lampooning the madding crowd

There is also the issue of our country’s chief executive’s lament that he ‘told’ the ‘old boys’ ‘not to’ ‘but’ ‘they went ahead anyway’. He only mentioned the Roy-Tho on national television two nights ago. But since the head of state was at the Battle of the Maroons, we assume it was not only the blues morons he meant? And all of this only begs the question of who’s running this nation-state anyway! 

Also, would it not be the same carpers and cavillers who would have been up in arms – had the president enforced a crackdown on the Big Match? Should they be happier that there was no jackboot at the same time as the military and medical backbone of the country were disinfecting the state? Could we get any more mercurial? There’s just no pleasing some folks! 

In the meantime, on a more realistic battlefront: Is it a critique of 19A that the brother of a former, powerful, president essayed in his comment? Is it a persuasion – on top of the plea to consolidate the incumbent’s power come April 25 – to revert or aspire to hyper-presidentialism again? Is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium? It is only that he seems to be a leader spared of popular panic and one who seems a bastion of steadfastness in the midst of speculatory confusion that redeems him.

Letting the crisis go to waste

Be that as it may, down the street where I live for the moment, there is a dull ache where there was a sense of great expectations, day before yesterday. We – yes, even I – had truly hoped that a fiery, focused, fabulously-crafted set of words would lift our spirits and bolster what seemed to be like flagging prospects amidst the start of a spike in the acceleration phase of SARS-CoV-2. 

Do you know that it was another wartime leader – the late great Sir Winston Churchill – who advised friends and foes alike to “never let a crisis go to waste”? He, at least, made great political capital out of a world war, never having been much of a solider or statesman before the landmark Battle of Britain, that key turning point in WWII.

In the end, how the president acts in the realm at large – rather than merely how he speaks on the small screen – will be the acid test. It will seal the fate of the regime and the fortunes of the republic. If handled well and wonderfully well, even that now-seemingly ambitious two-thirds majority is not necessarily a pipedream. If it all goes south – and not one friend or foe would hope for anything remotely like it, and so say all of us – well, in the long run we are all dead… pundits and parippu-eaters alike.  

(Journalist | Editor-at-Large of LMD | Writer in the time of a viral political culture)