By Vishvanath
There seems to be no end in sight to the JVP-led government’s U-turns. Hardly any sphere remains where it has not made a policy about-turn, the latest being the introduction of the QR-based fuel rationing to manage the country’s meagre petroleum reserves after weeks of dithering. In the propaganda world, the predicament of the current leaders is unprecedented in that what they did and said during their opposition days are in the digital realm, which is functioning as a parallel universe of sorts. The Opposition is making use of old social media posts of JVP/NPP politicians’ speeches to highlight the government’s policy contradictions.
A video containing a fiery speech made by Anura Kumara Dissanayake at an opposition rally during the previous government has resurfaced. He rubbishes the UNP’s claim that the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe has succeeded in ending fuel queues and the QR-based fuel allocations. Claiming that the QR method has served no purpose, he declares that President Wickremesinghe has jacked up fuel prices and high prices brought the demand for fuel down. The implication of his claim is that neither Wickremesinghe’s economic management nor the QR-based rationing helped do away with the fuel queues, which came to an end as fuel became unaffordable to the public due to price increases. In other words, according to what Dissanayake says in the video, price increases are the silver bullet to resolve fuel shortages. The government suddenly increased fuel prices last week, giving the impression to the public that it had been left with no alternative but to do so, given the extraordinary increase in the demand for fuel due to panic buying and hoarding and the world market price increases. Some government politicians and officials argued that the price increases were also aimed at curtailing the demand for fuel.
Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa and Chairman of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) D. J. Rajakarauna insisted at media briefings that the fuel issue could be managed without the QR-based rationing. They claimed the current situation was different from the one in 2022 in that at present the country had enough oil stocks and the queues were due to panic buying and stockpiling. They would have the public believe that the government could bring the situation under control without rationing fuel. But last Sunday the government made a U-turn; it introduced the QR-based fuel distribution.
Opposition politicians and their propagandists have gone into overdrive, ridiculing the government and claiming that it has adopted a method introduced by the previous government to manage the 2022 fuel crisis. What they have left unsaid is that their mismanagement of the economy and the resultant bankruptcy of the country drove them to devise that method to ration fuel, and there was no global oil crisis at that time, unlike today when the country has foreign currency for fuel imports, but oil is not readily available in the international market due to the Iran conflict, which has caused supply disruptions. Despite the fundamental differences between the two situations, the incumbent government could have managed the current fuel crisis better if it had adopted the QR-controlled fuel sales at least two weeks ago. Its delayed response enabled hoarders to have a field day and panic buyers to stock up on fuel.
The NPP government’s about-turns, which are legion, can be broadly divided into two categories—positive and negative. They can also be categorized as economic and political.
Prominent among the positive U-turns of the NPP is the government’s decision to adhere to the IMF programme and follow the bailout conditions. Before the 2024 presidential election, the JVP-led NPP criticized the IMF programme as a bad deal, vowing to make its loan conditions less constricting. Fortunately, after being voted into office, the NPP chose to exercise caution and refrained from doing anything that might derail the IMF programme, the be-all and end-all of straightening up the economy. It did so for its own sake, for it knew the economy would go back into a tailspin if the IMF withdrew assistance, and the people would take to the streets, in such an eventuality, plunging the country into chaos again. Whatever the reason, the country gained from that U-turn of the NPP on the economic front.
During its 2024 election campaign, the NPP also made a solemn pledge to slash taxes and tariffs. It promised to reduce fuel prices by at least Rs. 150 a litre. It raised the expectations of the public beyond measure. Thankfully, it changed its mind after forming a government and came to terms with the economic reality. Otherwise, it would have made the same mistake as the SLPP, which reduced fuel prices, taxes, etc., after coming to power, causing a drastic drop in state revenue and a rupee crisis, which led to excessive money printing and the depreciation of the rupee, aggravating the foreign currency crisis.
The NPP government has made several negative about-turns as well. The NPP publicly condemned several draconian laws, such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which it said had been abused by successive governments to suppress democracy. It promised to abolish the PTA immediately after forming a government. It has since made a U-turn, and is unflinchingly using the PTA to have people arrested and detained for long periods. The alternative it has proposed—the draft Protection of State from Terrorism Act (PSTA)—is widely thought to be worse than the PTA itself. The government is coming under increasing pressure to abolish the PTA without the proposed replacement.
The JVP/NPP condemned the previous governments for using Emergency regulations to further their political interests at the expense of people’s rights and freedoms. It pledged to be different, but it made another U-turn after capturing power. It declared a state of Emergency after the landfall of Cyclone Ditwah, which triggered a series of adverse weather events late last year. More than three months have elapsed since then, but the state of Emergency remains. The government continues to extend it every month, citing various reasons, which are far from logical and convincing.
It has been reported that some JVP/NPP politicians are busy deleting their old social media posts, which have become grist for the Opposition’s mill. But that is an exercise in futility in that all of them have been replicated on mirror sites.
