PremiumMahinda Rajapaksa’s government let groupthink get in the way of sound judgement on farm practices and trade barriers. It only resulted in mass distress. The country needs to reform its way out of trouble. And that calls for clear-headed leadership.
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The anger in Sri Lanka against the Rajapaksa clan that culminated in the storming of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s palace, forcing him to declare he’d quit, offers a political lesson in the perils of power concentration. But this popular uprising also had an underlying story of misgovernance. Colombo drove the economy into the national equivalent of bankruptcy when it ran short of money for essential imports. Economies needn’t be managed all the same way, as there is much scope for policy variation for contextual variety as well as focal priorities defined by preferences on, say, how rewards are best shared and burdens are borne. But modern life is such that an economy cannot be an island unto itself. To the extent that a nation’s external dependence requires global integration, all policy frameworks are bound by demands of outward orientation that don’t grant any space for gross defiance of standard economic advice. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government let groupthink get in the way of sound judgement on farm practices and trade barriers. It only resulted in mass distress. The country needs to reform its way out of trouble. And that calls for clear-headed leadership.