Govt: from an arrogant incompetence to a quite charming amateurishness?

IF you were looking to assess the quality and condition of governance in Sri Lanka of late, how well would you set about it? An analytical survey of the relevant (and sometimes irrelevant) stats as essayed by Verité or Advocata, et al.? Or a finger on the popular (or often unpopular) pulse as enter-prised by LMD’s biz confidence index?

- By Wijith DeChickera

Was it amiable derring-do or dismaying amateurishness that led the president to propose in Budget 2026 supporting the marginalised plantations community with a monthly two-hundred-rupee boost from state coffers?

There are times when the good sense of the usual metrics — managing key macroeconomic indicators, boosting public or investor confidence and delivering tangible results for the consumption of key stakeholders —fails.

Or worse, confuses with contradictory analyses or interpretations. Worst of all, the truth be told, produces effects that are meaningless in the limit. Which is why the polity is more often than not compelled to damn with faint praise their favourites.

Shall we make so bold as to incur the wrath of those who seek fact-based evaluations, and resort to the anecdotal rather than the evidential for once or for the nonce? Or better still, try to dis-til a semblance of the truth from the horse’s mouth, so to speak?

So rather than busting a gut gauging government's metier by its performance alone, perhaps an appeal to their personality might offer a different if insightful perspective. Here goes then.

Chuffed to bits

At the end of its first year in power — or at your service, as they would say — the incumbent administration is feeling, not to put too fine a point on it, quite pleased with itself.

All one has to do to discern which way that wind is blowing is give ear to yon madam of the moment these days. That breath of fresh air is no barometer of the true state of the nation nowadays but it is a beginning of an insight into the mindset of a governmental mercury.

If the prime minister’s recent self-congratulatory back pats for her fellows at the helm is anything to go by, as reported in The Hindu, the National People’s Power is doing swimmingly well.