With the Government inching closer to the symbolic ‘one year’ in office, the National People’s Power (NPP) Government is full steam ahead to ‘show results’ to their voters. Last week’s governance deliverables of curating executive privileges were picking low-hanging fruit, with the Government controlling a significant majority in the Parliament.

The action was clearly to appease the segment of the population who are easily satisfied with theatrics, rather than serious policy changes. The Government played to ‘send the Rajapaksas home’ and ‘send Ranil home’ galleries, but stopped short of curtailing the privileges of Parliamentarians, and their pensions, which many would argue was a bigger drain of public coffers than that of a handful of Presidents and their next of kin. The NPP seem to think that playing to the smaller JVP-core is what they need to do in government. The repercussions of such may only come to bite them later on, as both the defunct Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe use the opportunity to drum up sympathy and support for them. Some even questioned when the Government planned to bring back the big dollar funds which they claimed were stolen from public coffers and hidden overseas. The key question is how the curtailment of executive privileges will reflect on the cost-of-living crisis Sri Lankans are facing today: Will it help reduce the electricity tariff or the cost of medicine? Had the Government showed their commitment to reduce waste and exorbitant expenditure of the State by using the opportunity they used to push through the executive privileges’ curtailment, to also include the privileges of Parliamentarians, the savings would have been more pronounced. The shallow attempt at ‘good governance’ reeks of a political witch hunt, more than serious policy change.

The NPP also acts like they have selective amnesia of when they supported the Rajapaksa and Kumaratunga presidencies to come to power. Perhaps, the JVP-core element of the NPP would like nothing more than for the populus to forget ‘the good old days’ when they made merry with the same political elite which they now show the door to.

However, the NPP mandate comes from a wide cross-section of society, including those whose focus was on the recovery process from the economic crisis Sri Lanka is suffering from. They are watching to see the Government deliver on key promises, the ones that have a direct impact on the economy. Yet, despite decent stabilisation due to following existing fiscal discipline plans, Sri Lanka’s economy is far from ‘recovered’ or in a strong position. Some indicators point to planned growth numbers falling short of the IMF predictions, which is a serious concern. The question on if Sri Lanka is ready to face the realities of debt repayment and all that entails in 2028 is dangerously left to a guessing game. The robust reforms agenda which the previous administration planned out with the help of the IMF, World Bank and others, seems to be shunting slowly and picking up steam. While there have been some promising signs for some segments of the tourism sector, other export industries are yet to see relief, reform, or growth. The island’s once vibrant Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) sector remains in tatters, with little promise of a rebound on the horizon.

As such, the NPP Government with its large mandate and power for change, should not be wasting time prioritising the ‘picking of low-hanging fruit’ and playing to the gallery. The need of the hour is different, and the deliverables are not only those which come from anti-corruption arrests and routing of legacy leadership. Governance is much more. The Government must clearly show a roadmap for the reforms agenda and economic revival, it must build investment potential and investor confidence, and that means less red tape and easier access to state services and faster action by state officials. Much remains to be done. If the NPP Government gets distracted with their own theatre and is lulled to inefficiency by their own little fan base, they too will soon be ‘taught a lesson’ by the same swing vote which brought them to power.