Heading for a failed state or an absolute state

By R.M.B. Senanayake

The recent episode regarding the Z Score has led to demands that the Ministers of Education and Higher Education should resign.

In their defence they say that the decisions were taken not by them but by experts. Yes, but didn’t they appoint these experts? How did they appoint such nincompoops? Not for their expertise surely, but for their loyalty to them.

This episode explains what will happen when we have political appointees who curry favour with Ministers or the President for appointments or promotions. The President has brought this situation on himself by abolishing the Independent Commissions.

Technical decisions

The powers that be must understand that a modern state cannot be run by those who lack knowledge and competence. The President, by abolishing the Independent Commissions, has paved the way for a failed state. He has deprived himself and the Government of the advice of an Independent Commission which could recommend to him persons who fill the requirements for the top posts.

The Government today requires persons who have knowledge of economics, physics, chemistry and several other sciences. The Z Score formula could have been handled only by a statistician, not by somebody who bends before the Minister on all fours as gratitude for his appointment as we saw on TV.

These are technical decisions that should be left to experts and politicians should not interfere in them. If they do there will be chaos as we see in the matter of the Z Score.

A great disservice

The ancient Athenians entrusted governance to elected politicians who rotated their offices every three years. Even in those days the system led to chaos and not efficient governance, which led Plato to recommend the philosopher king as the best ruler and Aristotle to oppose democracy.

But it is unthinkable to allow such a system in a modern country. It will just not work. Those politicians who desire to exercise influence in the making of technical decisions regardless of the extent to which chemistry, medicine, mathematics or any other science enters into such decisions, are doing a great disservice to the people.

The British colonial rulers left a sound bureaucracy which was destroyed by the SLFP because they wanted to exercise power themselves. When will they ever understand that a modern state requires government by a bureaucracy versed in the modern sciences?

We had much better educated politicians in the past but even they did not intervene in technical decisions. But fools rush in where angels fear to tread and today we find politicians who lack a proper education trying to influence technical decisions.

Meritocracy

A meritocracy is a system where reward and responsibility is attributed on the basis of quality and merit. The abolition of Independent Commissions has meant that we have entrusted the power of appointment to the President who can listen only to those who are near and dear to him and who have their own agendas. It is the end of meritocracy.

Under a meritocracy you appoint only those who have the best qualifications and you promote the most capable. At the universities you appoint and promote the most bright and productive researchers and teachers. But we did not have such a meritocracy during our Sinhala kings.

Then appointments to government positions were based on the right of birth; and if you were the son of a king you became a king, regardless of how stupid you were. And if you were the son of a large landowner, you tend to be a landowner regardless of how stupid you are, and so on and so forth.

Now we have a similar system based not on birth but on political favour and connections. You become a chairman or chief executive of a State corporation because you have friends in high places. The system encourages the cultivation of the friendship of the politicians and the powers that be.

For example, if the IGP is appointed because of his friendship or connections with the powers that be, he cannot be expected to discharge his duties without fear and favour. He will do the bidding of those who appointed him and who have the power to dismiss him.

This problem was resolved in democratic states by the appointment of Independent Commissions and curbing the powers of the politicians through the Rule of Law. Officials are allowed to exercise power only in terms of the law. They have no power except what is conferred on them by law.

Politicisation

The Communists had a bureaucracy based on the party but although in the beginning they appointed experts to the bureaucracy, they later became corrupt under the protection of the party and Khrushchev exposed the corruption and the hypocrisy of the regime. Fascists like the Nazis also ran a bureaucracy based on loyalty to the regime but it all collapsed in the end.

The evils of democracy stem from the politicisation of the public and judicial service. If this trend is not curbed, there will be neither democracy nor good governance, but either a failed state or a tyranny ruled by the Gestapo. Probably it is too late in the day for Sri Lankan democracy. We will either become a failed state or a tyranny.



(The writer is an economist.)