{"id":89870,"date":"2019-06-04T13:25:38","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T20:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89870"},"modified":"2019-06-04T13:26:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T20:26:02","slug":"what-are-expectations-from-the-next-presidential-candidate-a-strong-cultural-design-and-policy-correction-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/04\/what-are-expectations-from-the-next-presidential-candidate-a-strong-cultural-design-and-policy-correction-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT ARE EXPECTATIONS FROM THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A STRONG CULTURAL DESIGN AND POLICY CORRECTION IN SRI LANKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Edward Theophilus<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

While problems relating to the Easter\nSunday attacks are diminishing, it seems that news media and politicians are\nopenly talking about the next presidential election. What is real public\nopinion on the next presidential election is quite difficult to understand as\nemerging talks in the country, despite the major problems attempt to camouflage\nthe real problems?  Emerging terrorism\nfrom time to time has been a significant problem since 1970 and such terrorist\nactivities related to all communities, Sinhala, Tamil and, Muslim. Whether they\nwere domestic productions or imported ideology cannot be determined by the\npublic as investigators have not disclosed findings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent explosion in Palali and\nthe death of a soldier might be complicated the problem further, the accurate\ninformation was not disclosed and shows that Sri Lanka needs a strong and wise\nsecurity system to protect people and collateral of the country.  People of the country without any difference\nhave a fundamental opinion that the next president must be a person with a\nstrong ability to tackle security issues. A part of Investigations into the\nEaster Sunday attacks revealed that the national security has relegated to\nuncertain politics and underestimated by politicians. For this purpose, Sri\nLanka needs a person who can tackle the security problems as the successful\ncandidate for the next presidential election. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we look back the major reason to\nemerge terrorism, it seems that brainwashing of young people using political or\nreligious beliefs was the beginning of terrorism. Young generation is\nvulnerable to vicious ideas without critically examining whether they are right\nor wrong and has not gained and is not being gained critical thinking power from\nschools and universities and attitudes of them are based on bullshits in many\ninstances, so there is a trend of aligning to revolutionary ideas or stupid\nreligious philosophies and potential to acting on such ideas with a view to\nachieving the utopia. Rohana Wijeweera brainwashed poor rural youth and\nuniversity students using five lessons copied from publications of Marxism and\nKim Il Sung in North Korea, a speech of Sunethra Bandaranaike and a book of\nJ.R.P. Surriaperuma. Prabhakaran followed bisection ideas of misguided Tamil\nleaders, and Saharan and his group addicted to revised Koran versions and teaching\nof manipulators of Islam after prophet Mohamed. Terrorism in Sri Lanka was\npurely a manipulation from outside theories and religious preachers than\naccurate or authenticated facts in above mention publications and understanding\nthe practical environment of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other vital fact is that Sri\nLanka is subject to an international power play among India China, USA, Russia,\nEurope, and the Middle East. We have seen that this situation has been growing\nsince independence.  Although Sri Lanka\nis not an economically powerful country to offer advantages to power players,\nthere is some potential in South Asian region for military and trade purposes\nand some countries in the region want to block the economic and trade\nactivities initiated by Sri Lanka with a view to attracting such gains and\nbenefits to them.   I feel that those international players are\nattempting for zero-sum games using Sri Lanka disregarding what would happen to\nits people. Therefore, next president in Sri Lanka should be an excellent\nthinker, a strategist in relation to military and civil activities with an\nability to make right decisions and reconcile the relations, especially with\nChina, India, and the USA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political leaders including the past\npresidents did not initiate or openly discuss with the public about policy\nissues. Past presidents and their political parties and associated people\nendeavored to gain power misleading people without openly talking about the\nreality of the country. In 2015 presidential and general elections opened the\nhopes of people for good cultural design, but the political bias of associated\npeople disgraced the good governance and the hopes of people.  In this environment, next presidential\ncandidate must consider to making a good cultural design for the country, and\nit should be the main policy strategy with a view to maintaining harmony among\nethnic and religious groups and international institutions. Policy correction\nand invention in relation to the economy, education, administration, racial and\nreligious harmony, foreign relations and other areas in a good cultural design\nwould be successful without aligning to temporary measures. Past presidents\npractically aligned to temporary measures rather than looking for medium- and\nlong-term focus with a clear vision. \nWhile giving leadership for such activities, the president should give leadership\nfor modernization of the country.  \nWithout a strong leadership for modernization, like emperor Meiji did in\nJapan, the country cannot go forward in the dynamic world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After independence in 1948, Sri Lanka\nhad a good opportunity to make a strong cultural design, which entirely changes\nthe attitudes of people, however, the political leadership was unable to\nproduce such a good design as they followed greedy politics with a view to gain\npower or to be in power. People have very much experience that many presidents\nwithdrew good constitutional and legal provisions to maintain a just society in\nSri Lanka.  When a group of people, who\nhave no real public supports come to the road, leaders withdrew good\nmeasures.  The proposed cultural design\nshould be based on one country and one nation with one law for all. People may\nbe different from size, shape, color, political and religious beliefs, but\npeople do share something universal, which is called “Humanness” as\nAristotle stated.  When there is a good\ncultural design nobody can put hands to affairs of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a cultural design may be\nquestioned to the public?  Sri Lanka’s\npolitical authority needs to understand the nature of laws and controls and how\nthey should be effectively used in the country. After independence, people were\nnot educated the way of designing a culture and how it should be consisting of\nand what is expected behavior in a good society.  Cultural design is making strong rules,\nregulations, and laws to stabilize the country giving equal opportunity for\neveryone and eliminating discrimination on Racal, religious, caste dictions and\nothers. The yahapalana regime intended to do the cultural design, but within a\nshort period, the regime changed the policies opposed and turned to a more\nvicious politics and corrupt practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the process of policy correction,\nthe economy of the country is the most important area.  In 1978 began the market economic system but\nit was implemented without disciplines and controls and the market economic\nsystem promoted an unbalanced growth networking bulk of investments to Western\nprovince.  Urbanization must be expanded\nto regional Sri Lanka to giving benefits to rural people.  Many economic problems are related to the\nmacroeconomy, there may be artificial intelligent or microeconomic reforms\nimportant but macroeconomic policies are vital to shaping the economy.  Population control and unemployment should\nconsider as a strategic policy correct because the size of population in Sri\nLanka is too much for the size of lands and available services.  The population of Sri Lanka should be controlled\nto 1981 level ( Sinhala 75%, Tamil 15%, Muslim 7% and others 3%) giving the\nratio of  the population had in 1981. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education in the country must be\neffectively reshaped to reduce the cost associated with it and generate\nproductive and knowledge nation in all contexts of education. The current\neducation does not produce quality people from all context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The administration field generates\nunaffordable costs to the country. \nWithin an unliterary constitutional system, Sri Lanka needs\nadministrative delegation to district level with strong coordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethnic and religious harmony will be\ndepended on a strong cultural design, which eliminates discrimination and gives\nequality for all religious and ethnic groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign relations should be focused\non reconciling between power blocs and not aligning to a specific bloc. Sri\nLanka needs to maintain a very good relationship with neighboring countries\nincluding India and China with other trading partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Policy correction will be successful\nonly if current policies are properly reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next presidential candidate must\nexpress his or her views on these major areas and be able  to give leadership with a strong military and\ncivil experience. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Edward Theophilus While problems relating to the Easter Sunday attacks are diminishing, it seems that news media and politicians are openly talking about the next presidential election. What is real public opinion on the next presidential election is quite difficult to understand as emerging talks in the country, despite the major problems attempt to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}