Can Sri Lanka really afford a regime change?

From grey to pink, orange to silver: Sri Lanka’s skies shift hues all day. Over the past 15 years, much like its heavens, its citizens, too, have repeatedly sought new political alternatives. So, will the presidential election today see yet another ‘vote for change’?In 2009, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, revered like a demigod for ending the 30-year-long separatist war in which 120,000 people were killed, sailed home to a second term. There followed a period of rapid development and reconstruction. But corruption and nepotism mounted, China laid its first debt-traps and the Rajapaksa family fell from grace. In 2015, despite all else, there was relative prosperity. But the ‘people’s voice’ — a term heard frequently in Sri Lanka right now — rose again and elected as president Maithripala Sirisena who promised ‘good governance’.Barely two years later, his star waned. Sirisena had not undertaken constitutional reforms, there was a shortage of cash. MPs received additional perks, while unemployment, taxes and prices shot up. When 269 people were killed and 500 injured in ISIS terror attacks on Easter Day 2019, it proved the last straw. The ‘people’s voice’ dumped Sirisena and brought back the terrorist-vanquishing Rajapaksas. This time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda’s younger brother (defence secretary at the time of LTTE’s defeat), was elected president. Mahinda became PM and various Rajapaksas settled into other exalted posts.By 2022, that second honeymoon had ended. Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed completely. External loans had mounted, there was no foreign exchange to pay them off. The terror attacks and then the pandemic had dealt a blow to tourism, a revenue-earning mainstay. Gotabaya’s total ban on chemical fertilisers destroyed Sri Lanka’s export of tea, the Ukraine war caused a shortage of grain. There was no cooking gas and no petrol, even as ships laden with both, waited in the harbour to be paid first.Protests spilled onto the streets and govt responded with brute force. Anger turned into loot and arson, Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned and Ranil Wickremesinghe was named interim prime minister. Gotabaya, too, stepped down and fled the country. Sri Lanka was rendered headless.At the time, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Leninist-Marxist MP, Anura Kumara Dissanayake — who are both contesting today’s presidential poll — had led thunderous demonstrations against the Rajapaksas. And yet, both declined the unenviable job at the helm of a broke and furious nation. It was left to Wickremesinghe, then 73, to take over as interim president.Two years later, lavish weddings are in full swing, families are shooting the ocean breeze on the Galle Face Green, tall hotel towers are ablaze with fairy lights, there is full occupancy. To anyone who witnessed the desperate scenes of grandmothers hauling gas cylinders forward, inch by inch, to keep their place in snaking queues during the 2022 crisis, Sri Lanka seems to have turned the corner.And it is Wickremesinghe, an erstwhile foreign minister, opposition leader, and prime minister multiple times, who is behind that gradual revival. In the last two years, the experienced politician has persuaded international donors to restructure external debt and ease pressure on Sri Lanka’s coffers. He has cut public spending, raised taxes and controlled lending rates and inflation.And yet, Sri Lanka’s affluent chatterati — many of whom reside abroad — love to deride him as ‘The Establishment’. In fashionable cafes at the Dutch Hospital shopping centre, they swear allegiance to either Dissanayake — known as “AKD” — or the LSE graduate Premadasa before anyone who cares to listen. As for Namal Rajapaksa, 38, Mahinda’s son who is also contesting with vigour, they have nothing but scorn. ‘Woke’ Sri Lankans also champion the ‘Tamil Cause’ vociferously but draw a blank when asked the name (Pakkiyaselvam Ariyanethiran) of the first Tamil in their country’s history to contest the presidential poll (this time).Opinion polls have registered an upswing for Ranil Wickremesinghe, but still place AKD and Sajith Premadasa in the lead. “AKD represents the revolution, Premadasa the change and Wickremesinghe stands for stability,” says leading activist Jehan Perera. “Remember: there’s still a substantial percentage of undecided voters.”India played a leading role in helping ease Sri Lanka’s crisis and many Sri Lankans acknowledge that help. South Block seems confident and unconcerned about who will win. But other than AKD playing to the gallery about how he will cancel a ‘corrupt’ wind power project awarded to Adani group, neither he nor Premadasa has clearly spelled out how they intend to address India’s trade interests in Sri Lanka, and its security concerns over Chinese naval forays into Sri Lankan waters.So, will Sri Lankans settle for the continuity that Wickremesinghe represents? Or match their skies and bring in untested candidates at this very crucial time in the country’s history, merely because they promise ‘change’?Ranil Wickremesinghe’s election symbol is, aptly, a blue cooking gas cylinder. In response to a question by a local newspaper on what’s at stake in today’s poll, the seasoned politician sounded clear.“The future of Sri Lanka, nothing else,” he said.The writer is a foreign correspondent and author of Sri Lanka: The New Country.