World Bank warns that Sri Lanka’s short election cycles and populist policies may turn the island into a banana republic

A multilateral lender has warned that Sri Lanka's increasingly short election cycles and populist policies are threatening to turn the island into an unstable Latin American-style republic. A multilateral lender has warned that Sri Lanka's increasingly short election cycles and populist policies are threatening to turn the island into an unstable Latin American-style republic. "The short election cycle spawns populist measures, which undermine fiscal health and feed unrealistic expectations," the World Bank said, in the Sri Lanka Development Review, released Thursday.

"As long as the expectations of ordinary citizens continue to be unmet in the short term, there is real risk of even worse political scenarios – such as in Latin America – where opportunistic political figures win favor among a population disenchanted with traditional political groups."

Many Latin American nations, which face regular socialist revolutions, economic mis-management, poverty and yet more revolutions are branded in the popular media as banana republics, after their main export which was in the grip of multinationals such as the United Fruit Company.

Sri Lanka's present Marx