COLOMBO: Veteran Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to unveil a populist budget today hoping to shore up sagging electoral support ahead of a troubled bid to win a third term.
Rajapaksa has advanced the budget for 2015 by a month to give his government more time to implement widely predicted tax cuts and public sector pay rises ahead of snap elections in January.
Analysts say Rajapaksa, who oversaw the crushing of the Tamil Tiger rebel movement in 2009, has a new fight on his hands to cling onto power with gratitude among voters over the end of the war having faded.
His information minister let slip on Monday that Rajapaksa will seek a third term in January, two years ahead of schedule, after recent local elections underlined a steady drop in support for the main ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) party.
And analysts say the 68-year-old president’s allies appear to have persuaded Rajapaksa that his chances of re-election would only have worsened if he held back from seeking a fresh mandate.
“People loved him too much after the war victory,” said political commentator and author Victor Ivan.
While Sri Lanka posted impressive annual growth rates of around eight percent in the years since the end of the fighting, observers say few people have reaped the benefit of the peace dividend.
The once-sleepy capital Colombo is a hive of activity as work to expand the port and build hotels and high-rises goes on around the clock. Major highways are sprouting across the island to end the isolation of rural areas.
But complaints abound that infrastructure projects have served to mainly line the pockets of ruling party cronies and Chinese companies who carry out the work, rarely employing locals.
While the overall jobless rate is around four percent, youth unemployment is as high as 20 percent.
Murtaza Jafferjee, head of the Sri Lanka-based stockbroker JB Securities, said the government was likely to bump up public sector salaries in an attempt to persuade civil servants to remain loyal to the UPFA. AFP
