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by Gotaimbara

Those with an econo-centric worldview believe that the fault lies in the economy and that if we got our arithmetic right with respect to demand and supply, marginal costs and marginal benefits, the exchange rate, terms of trade, comparative advantage etc., we can turn this country round.

What we need is a good manager, they say. Ranil is a better manager of the economy, say his friends in the business community. Well, friends are notoriously partial creatures so their opinions need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Still, it would not be out of place to assess Mr. Wickremesinghe's managerial skills at this point.

The leader of a country does have to have management skills. That goes without saying. He has to be skilled enough to mobilise resources, including experts, and come up with strategies that can benefit the people, meaning of course the vast majority of the population and a good cross section of it.

Here's the man

Ranil Wickremesinghe is a leader, notionally at least. He has been the leader of the United National Party for well over a decade. He was in charge of the country from December 2001 to April 2004. He cannot complain that he was not given the opportunity to lead. He was. Ranil Wickremesinghe wanted to run the country like a business enterprise.

He wanted to be the CEO of this "company". These are no doubt interesting (and easy) metaphors, but a country is not a company, and in any case, no self-respecting CEO would willingly facilitate the take over of a significant part of the company to a predator. But let's say all that is marginal and let's get down to the core. In other words, did he keep his shareholders happy?

The UNP still believes that it was ousted in a coup by the president.

Managerial skills

The UNP would agree with the rest of the country that the 2004 election was by far the most free and fair election we have had in decades. If the popular view was that the UNP was handed the short end of the stick, then a sympathetic electorate would have voted Wickremesinghe's party back to power.

They didn't. Instead the electorate said what they felt about his managerial skills. He just didn't have what it takes, they decided.

That regime, like the UNP regimes that preceded it, have formulated and implemented policies that were antithetical to the interests of the poor, both urban and rural. They made up the numbers. They still make up the numbers. They knew that Ranil Wickremesinghe acts on behalf of a select category of shareholders in the corporation called Sri Lanka, namely the business community.

He was a "good manager" for them and it is no surprise that it is these self-same beneficiaries of Ranil's policy largesse that are today propagating the myth that the man is a "better manager". Yes, a better manager for them. Not for the country and its most disadvantaged.

Experts from the World Bank say that the state sector is inefficient and corrupt. Those who express this view assume that the private sector is efficient and corruption-free. The truth is that among the biggest frauds have been perpetrated by the CEOs of companies acting in collusion with government officials. They are the worst defaulters on bank loans and there have been many instances where such loans have been written off by friendly politicians. For a price, of course.

Ranil Wickremesinghe stands guilty of enacting the biggest and most scandalous mechanisms to enable big time tax-dodgers to get off scot-free, the badu samaa panatha.

Who benefited from his tax reform policy that let the most notorious tax dodgers off the hook? The poor people of this country? No. Cronies! Let us remind ourselves that companies, even when they "pay" taxes, are doing little more than passing on to the Treasury the taxes they've collected from the ordinary people on behalf of the state.

When they don't pay taxes, they are engaging in highway robbery.

Ranil Wickremesinghe saluted such robbery. Can this country afford such "managers"?

A good manager for cronies is not necessarily a good manager of the economy. He cannot win and maintain the trust of the entire company (in this case, the country). In short, he is a disaster when it comes to managing the political. A man who refuses to acknowledge that the political is embedded even in companies, cannot ensure long term stability or viability of an organisation, leave alone a nation.

Epic story of arrogance

Wickremesinghe's mismanagement of the political is an epic story of arrogance, authoritarianism and cronyism. To prove this, all one has to do is to assess his track record as leader of the UNP. He has led the UNP to defeat after defeat since 1994 and his sole victory in 2001 was thanks to the fact that the SLMC and a breakaway group from the PA teamed up with him.

That was an accident. A good manager cannot wait on fortune to smile on him. He has to create the conditions for the arrival of fortuitous circumstances.

Today Ranil Wickremesinghe has returned to his 2001 slogan: karana de kiyana, kiyana de karana (I say what I do and do what I say). What a fascinating transparency! But what does the track record say?

This Manager wanted to manage the "ethnic problem" in much the same way that CEOs execute horse-deals, i.e. behind closed doors. It may work for a big company, but it is a no-no in a democracy.

Wickremesinghe didn't tell us what he was doing with Prabhakaran. In fact he told us he didn't know how to go about it. The last thing this country needs when negotiating with one of the worst terrorists the world has known is to have an ignorant person representing the peace-loving people at the negotiating table.

Management plan

A good manager, one would assume, would be well informed and have a plan. Wickremesinghe didn't. His mismanagement cost us people like Charles Wijewardena and Lakshman Kadirgamar, not to mention what his "management" did to our intelligence personnel, starting with the infamous Millennium City raid.

His mismanagement alienated a vast section of the peace loving people of this country who include the Sinhalese without whose vote he can't hope to win.

Wickremesinghe promised to root out corruption. He turned a blind eye when his senior ministers did the hanky-panky. That didn't sound like "kiyana de karana" to me or to the people of this country.

Regaining Sri Lanka was his signature campaign. Regaining Sri Lanka was about setting up the infrastructure to make the rich richer. It had no concern at all for the sustainable management of resources and it paid little heed to the practical needs of the poor.

Managing discontent is part and parcel of managing a country and this is by no means an easy task. Shaggy and UB 40 would just not do the job. At the end of the day, people have to go home to household issues and a shrinking purchasing capacity which of course is thrown in their faces unceremoniously each time they visit the pola. Wickremesinghe didn't know that then and he doesn't show any sign of having learnt it now.

A country is not a company. Companies don't have to deal with the unemployed. Companies don't have to deal with terrorists demanding "traditional homelands" at gun point. Companies don't have to deal with cultural sensibilities. Companies don't have to think about the next generation. Companies don't have to worry about the literacy rate in Thanamalwila. Companies don't have to worry about health care because there are other companies to look after such things.

Companies don't have to have a foreign policy or worry about the balance of power in the region. Companies will always worry about profit margins. Companies will not in general pass down profits to the employees. Such things are the concerns of a true national leader.

Ideal post

If indeed Wickremesinghe is a good manager, the ideal post for him would be Minister of Finance under a nationalist president. Only a nationalist can identify the true comparative advantage of the nation.

Such a leader will not tout cheap labour amenable to disciplining through relevant legislation as an "asset" and a "comparative advantage" as he woos foreign investment. Such a leader will not barter our rainforests, our water resources, in order to make the country investor-friendly.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, unfortunately, is not such a leader.

No country in this globalised world can survive as a viable nation if it lacks the organisational framework necessary to negotiate transactions, including solicitations of facilitation for peace-building for a price.

Such a manager...

The key organisational factor is nothing less than a sense of the "nation", a sense that includes sensitivity to culture and cultural diversity and the aspirations based on identity.

Wickremesinghe, sadly, does not have the pulse of the people. He has a managerial mentality, even if he lacks managerial skills. He sees only consumers when he is required to see people. He sees marketable skills when he is required to see men and women struggling to feed, clothe and educate their children.

He sees a market and market potential when he is required to see a people and aspiration. He sees a corporation when he is required to see a nation. Such a manager would be the darling of a corporation that has already established itself. Such a manager this nation struggling to secure its identity and find its feet, can do without.

Such a manager, this people, long suffering and hoping for a time when they really count, can do without. The cost-effective thing would be to hire such a manager, not elect him. In other words, if Wickremesinghe believes he can carry off this campaign by playing the managerial card, he is mistaken.

Simply, it makes no sense for Mr. Wickremesinghe to contest the presidency.

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