Selective republicanism of socialist regime rules

The pre-election promises spanning political, social and economic dimensions have been 

seemingly kept on a selective basis

A bigger picture emerges on the larger canvas of national political life... it is one in which the relatively few, early, ongoing good deeds that should redound to government’s credit are overshadowed by the greater good it has yet to do – because we’re beginning to be agnostic to their potential to effect systemic change, having lost faith in their slow, steady and plebeian ways. Also, we’ve failed to remember the religious zeal of previous dispensations for evil deeds

No good deed goes unpunished, mused libertarian socialist Oscar Wilde, no doubt while in Reading Gaol and reminiscing about that ironic truism in his own short life. 

Perhaps some of the stalwarts in governmental ranks share a similar sentiment about the electorate at large today, sensing dissent even beyond the ranks of Tuscany.

Perhaps the NPP regime suspects that for all the lip service its loyalists pay to the powers be, there is an emerging feeling of dissension at the state of the nation a year down the road.

In the main it is because the government of the day has not necessarily done too badly for itself and the people it represents but also that, like the regimes it aspired to replace, it has not done enough for the parts of the polity it does not necessarily represent.

We mean by this paradox that while the National People’s Power has kept some of its promises to some of the people, it has arguably not lived up to the full promise and potential of the new broom that was envisaged to not only sweep well but utterly cleanse the Augean stables of local politics. 

Is it only the law’s delays that keep the erstwhile miscreants at large while justice languishes? Lasantha’s and Thajudeen’s killers? Ekneligoda’s abductors? The perpetrators of massacres other than at Chemmani? 

A start has been made, for sure; but the element of self-scrutiny whereby ‘judgment must begin in the household of god’ seems to be missing!

While the shambles of a republic in ruins after decades of the uni-political culture that ruled the roost would certainly take a comparable or longer time to set right again, the first year of the tyro administration has yielded slow and steady, yet strangely disappointing, results for a hopeful citizenry beyond the pale of the JVP strongholds. 

The good deeds

A quick rehearsal of the newbie government’s achievements in its first year would not be amiss here... as it was in last week’s column (https://www.ft.lk/columns/The-year-that-was-thrashing-towards-NPP-s-thriving-nation/4-781895, Friday 19th September).

To wit: the pre-election promises spanning political, social and economic dimensions have been seemingly kept on a selective basis. Some low-hanging fruit have been plucked. But rotten apples have yet to be evicted from the batch. And the allegation that some of these are in the government’s barrel has been hard to stomach for those who claim that the NPP are sea-green incorruptible. 

There are many positives, however. All of them as given below underscoring at least the partial fulfilment (subject to timely ongoing disbursements) of the NPP Govt.’s commitment to its social protection agenda:

• Amendment of the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax under the ‘economic reforms’ plank.
• Using the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2025 to revise tax brackets to ease the burden borne by the earning/taxpaying masses and increasing the tax-free threshold from Rs. 100,000 to 150,000. 
• Provision of a minimum monthly financial grant ranging from 10,000 rupees to Rs. 17,500 for low-income families. 
• Providing a monthly allowance of Rs. 5,000 to senior citizens needing assistance; a minimum monthly financial grant on a needs-basis of Rs. 10,000 to persons with chronic illnesses; as well as a similarly timed comparable disbursement (10,000/- monthly) to people with disabilities in low-income families. 

Then again, in the political sphere, there have been these salutary developments:

• Appointing only 25 Ministers and corresponding Deputy Ministers and no superfluous State Ministers to ‘logically determined ministries’ (22 Cabinet including the President and 28 Deputies were duly appointed as of August 2025). 
• Conducting local-government (LG) elections to elect Councillors for 339 of the 341 local authorities (28 Municipal and 38 Urban Councils, as well as 275 Pradeshiya Sabhas).
• Providing the public with comprehensive updates on State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to ensure much-needed transparency in their operations and possible divestiture.

All of these are key first steps in dismantling the culture of crookedness that prevailed too long. 

Nor has NPP fandom curbed the enthusiasm of those who note other welcome developments. As one admirer posted recently, perhaps capturing the zeitgeist of those celebrating the much vaunted ‘system change’: “What AKD & NPP have already delivered in just the first year alone is proof enough for me ... Stock Market, balance of payments, tourist arrivals, all economic indicators, currency and base interest rate stabilisation, etc. etc. and above all: no one is putting my tax money into their hip pockets – or robbing EPF/ETF savings of the hard-working people of Sri Lanka.”

The null voids

Some lapses persist in the public imagination, particularly among stubborn dissenters who insist that there is no longer a place for cynical politics after the enthronement of popular sovereignty in the town halls and market squares of the citizens’ uprising best characterised by the Aragalaya. 

These lacunae include:

• who the allegedly yet unknown masterminds behind the political conspiracy of the Easter Sunday attacks of 2019 are as well as ensuring justice for the abducted, assassinated and enforcedly disappeared in Sri Lanka’s protracted war with and on itself.
• Abolition of the albatross that is the sometimes loathed and yet often coveted executive presidency. 
• Release of all political prisoners and ensuring their re-socialisation for the good of all. 
• Drafting a new constitution that strengthens democracy in our republic by being more representative, inclusive and pluralistic, and guaranteeing the effective equality of all citizens.

And once again on social media commentators add their peculiar flavour to the mix. As regards the government’s anticorruption drive and stance, one critic charges that “apart from the fake Speaker, no action has been taken against Govt players being investigated”, adding for good measure: “Bribery and corruption offenders being dealt with equitably – irrespective of political affiliations – is a must... no favouritism!” 

The court of public opinion being a key indicator of how well government is doing seems to cut no ice with the JVP-led NPP, however.

Measures that comprise a mixed bag – works in progress that still require closer scrutiny by civil society to ensure that the usual suspects don’t slip into new laws – span the gamut from promised re-enactments to fine-tuning ambiguous laws:

• Abolishing the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and replacement of that dread act with a law more tenable for a milieu militating away from conflict into peace with justice for all. 
• Amending the odious Online Safety Act (OSA) as it is, which needs closer scrutiny to ensure that the Online Safety (Repeal) Bill actually protects vulnerable women and children among other potential targets online, while eschewing traps to stymie criticism of government.

Socio-political perspectives

A bigger picture emerges on the larger canvas of national political life... it is one in which the relatively few, early, ongoing good deeds that should redound to government’s credit are overshadowed by the greater good it has yet to do – because we’re beginning to be agnostic to their potential to effect systemic change, having lost faith in their slow, steady and plebeian ways. Also, we’ve failed to remember the religious zeal of previous dispensations for evil deeds. 

As the high priest of orthodoxy G. K. Chesterton once essayed: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing; they then become capable of believing in anything.” Is just desserts for those who robbed us a judicious disguise for social envy?

Is it a selective republicanism we subscribe to these days... whereby all past political actors in a previous dispensation are rich for the picking, to pluck out of skulking obscurity and punish, while present players get to go scot-free because they are in the camp of the faithful out to dispense ‘justice’?

Outspoken Canadian-American psychiatrist Dr. Jordan Peterson quotes George Orwell to devastating effect, in this regard. Having observed that “after reading the first half of his book (‘The Road to Wigan Pier’), it is impossible not to feel sympathy for the working poor, the clinician and commentator observes that the author he so admires had second thoughts about socialism:

“He [Orwell] concluded that the tweed-wearing, armchair-philosophizing, victim-identifying, pity-and-contempt-dispensing social-reformer types frequently did not like the poor, as they claimed. Instead, they just hated the rich.” 

God – and George Orwell – forbid that such a telling charge be brought against those who would punish the plutocrats in our erstwhile kleptocracy not because they favour social justice but out of a misplaced sense of retribution, with the state as judge, jury and executioner. They disguise their resentment and envy with piety, sanctimony and self-righteousness well who often privilege the ‘punish others’ motive over and above the ‘hold self accountable first’ imperative. 

End note 

We began with Wilde and an oblique reference to his 1891 essay ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism.’ It may be apposite to end with him vis-à-vis the NPP’s vision, especially as regards social justice for the poor and oppressed.

Wilde observed that under capitalism “the majority of the people spoil their lives by an exaggerated and unhealthy altruism” and often feel compelled to solve the social issues caused by that exploitative system, rather than seeking to eliminate their common cause. 

He noted that people who care about the common good “seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the remedying the evils they see in poverty, but their remedies do not cure the disease; they merely prolong it.”

So the libertarian socialist that he was, Wilde advocated for a radical remedy by asserting that “the proper aim to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible”.

It may be more low-hanging fruit for the regime in situ. If only the people’s power would begin to treat politics as the art of the possible and consider promises made for a just and equitable society for all as a sacred pledge and not a cynical electoral ploy. Oh yes, and after they’ve plucked a rabbit out of their hat as regards all the other to-dos that remain on the national to-do list. We wish them and all of us the very best.    

(Editor-at-large of LMD | A year later – and going forward)