BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

When I was talking to people in Sri Lanka as well as those who were overseas, they expressed that Sri Lanka needs a partial dictatorship for efficient and clean administration. Major news items in print and web media at present are mainly focusing on corruption, misappropriation, cheating, and information related to the dishonesty of politicians and government employees. If the public sector is so corrupt it would not difficult to assume that private sector and Non-government institutions popularly called NGOs, may also in a similar corrupt situation despite the general belief of people that they are clean organizations.  Sri Lankans are frustrated with so corrupt information are being reported in the existing democratic operation and people expect corruption-free efficient and effective environments in the country. Coronavirus pandemic may give a signal to temporarily forget past corrupt practices but it doesn’t mean that it should forget forever and ever.

 It seems that democratic political operation supports the corrupt administration despite political rhetoric that democracy is the best administration representing peoples’ participation. When it looks back on the government administration mechanism since independence in 1948 corruption and maladministration have been gradually increased and they have an upward trend without political party differences. Administrators under all political parties have recorded relations to corruption and malpractices. The investigation process relating to various cases appears delaying justice and people are discomfort about this situation and they assume that politicians wilfully delay the bringing justice or support for delaying tactics.  The perception of the public in this arena is negative and many people are of opinion that Sri Lanka needs a partial dictatorship to achieve expectations of people.

After the presidential election in 2019 people are full of hope that elected president, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa will do the needful to eliminate corruption and change the malpractices in the government sector.  Now, people are observing the operations with precarious minds what are going on and news media report that corrupt practices are active and when people hear such information, they disturb about new administration too.   

When news spread on the election of Mr. Rajapaksa many Western commentators attempted to spread negative opinions especially referring to ethnic problems, which is a possible issue of less than 5% of the population or a tiny group of people in the country.  Recently, I read a BBC report, it was a completely negative opinion and I have a question of why this reporter sent negative opinion when many people of Sri Lanka reject such a negative way of reporting.  I had a suspicion that the report aimed at the Geneva Human Rights Conference and ideas were not authentic views of BBC.  Reports on BBC have ignored the issues of more than 95% of people and during the LTTE war and just after the war these negative commentators had an organized attempt to undermine the Rajapaksa administration giving the wrong impression that Sri Lanka might be a failed state.  There is no doubt that reporters need to show what they have done for the payments, but providing unreliable information may be a clear undermining of the credibility of the news agency. They were the only opinion, but not true information and readers of the report might misunderstand the government of Sri Lanka. The yahapalana regime recorded more dishonest work but not a single point about the regime has mentioned in the reporting process.

In history, people of the country without any ethnic difference adapted to a dictatorship in political administration and people preferred to dictatorship as it was less corrupt and attempted to fulfill the aspirations of common people. The public of Sri Lanka hadn’t the idea of any other style of political philosophy when they gained democratic administration to compare the differences.   

[D1] The exercise of democratic administration had been effective since the State Council in 1931 and the administration was strictly scrutinized by the British rule. When Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948 people had democratic experience only for 20 years and the knowledge and experience gained from a short period have not been sufficient to exercise clean administration and the freedom has been misunderstood by elected representatives as well as supporters of political parties. The active participation of people in administration at the regional level had been lower and people did not want to be engaged in or participate except voting in elections.

The impartial opinion about this matter is that people of the country had a short period to learn democratic administration, its operational pattern and its consequences.  If it looks at the British democratic operations, the UK has no written constitution but conventions had been developed throughout centuries and people learned well about democratic traditions so they respect them.

The clear evidence under the dictatorship in history was nobody wanted to divide the country neither wanted to implement different styles of administration except cultural or religious practices, democratic administration promoted to go beyond the cultural and religious practices and mark borders withing the small island.  

Many English Dictionaries define democracy as a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of the country typically through elected representatives. The question is when there are no differences in ethnic, religious, caste or any other differences exist, could the rule of majority be accepted as Democracy when there is a violation of human values? This is a vital point that people need to understand when applying a democratic rule in a country.  It was not educated in Sri Lanka before introduce the democratic system. Broadly democracy involved in different concepts such as representative democracy, social democracy, and many others.

The short period of administration of the president Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa showed that a partial Dictatorship is the most suitable and appropriate administration to Sri Lanka and many academics confirmed it. The struggle to control the COVID 19 proved that how a partial Dictatorship is suitable for efficient and clean administration.

The academics of Sri Lanka expressed the following points.

• Although Sri Lanka’s government provides free education to all its citizens the country has not become a knowledge nation, ignorance, apathy, and illusion are chained the country. As a result, people are behaving like stupids without required disciplines relating to all matters.  This situation cannot change by the current democratic framework.
• People have an understanding of democracy and democratic rights. As aa result of this ignorance rights are violated and disrespect often. No politician or any other institution has taken steps to educate democratic rights and responsibilities to people. 
• Education of the country has ignored and it seems that value education is not promoting in schools, Saradharma which is extremely focused to attract respect to elders and cleary rather than attempting to promote a value-laden society.
• The general administration in the private and public sectors of the country is covered by a vicious bureaucracy, which is corrupt and the politics in the country have failed to scrutinize the role of public offices. This situation is worse than a dictatorship.
• Sri Lanka has faced a harsh foreign influence.

The opinion of academic and ordinary people is that Sri Lanka needs a partial dictatorship.

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