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