Economic issues, cost of living priority concerns among most Sri Lankans, CPA survey shows
View(s):The state of the economy and cost of living continue to adversely affect Sri Lankan households with people compromising on food quality and medical care, a new survey shows.
Social Indicator (SI), the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, said that with Presidential elections due early next year, the survey revealed that 44.3 per cent of Sri Lankans think that the Constitution should limit a President to serving a maximum of two terms.
SI’s latest ‘Democracy in Post War Sri Lanka’ survey released this week also showed that divisions between people’s opinions when it comes to reconciliation still persist.
On the Sri Lankan economy, 31.9 per cent of Sri Lankans believe the general economic situation in the country has got a little better while almost 27 per cent say that it has got a little worse and 18.5 per cent say that it has got a lot worse. When it comes to the current economic situation of the country, 36.7 per cent of Sri Lankans believe that it is somewhat good while 30.6 per cent say somewhat bad, and 19.5 per cent say that it is very bad.
“The financial situation of the household seems to have got worse in the last 2 years – almost 30 per cent of Sri Lankans say that it has got a little worse while 25.6 per cent say that it has got a lot worse. 24.2 per cent of Sri Lankans state that they have gone without medicine or medical treatment in the last year, with the Up Country Tamil community (58.2 per cent) being the most affected. Compromising on food quality, 42.7 per cent of Sri Lankans say that they have cut back on the amount or quality of food they have purchased with again the Up Country Tamil community being the most affected (almost 60 per cent),” the report said.
On reconciliation, divisions in opinion between the communities persist. 40.8 per cent of Sri Lankans believe that the Government has done a little, but not enough to address the root causes of the conflict, which resulted in 30 years of war. 39.9 per cent from the Tamil community and 33.3 per cent from the Up Country Tamil community believe that the Government has done nothing to address the root causes of the war while 35 per cent from the Sinhalese community said the Government has done a lot to address the root causes.
Around 54 per cent of Sri Lankans said they approve of the increase in the role of the forces in civilian tasks, with 17 per cent saying that they strongly approve. 41.6 per cent from the Sinhalese community said that they somewhat approve of this role while 30.2 per cent from the Tamil community said that they strongly disapproved, the survey noted.
On Presidential elections, 44.3 per cent of Sri Lankans think the Constitution should limit a President to serving a maximum of two terms while 27.6 per cent say that there should be no limit. From the four communities, it is mainly the Muslim community (69.7 per cent) who believe that there should be limit of two terms while 59.5 per cent from the Up Country Tamil community, 57.3 per cent from Tamil and 38.4 per cent of Sinhalese say the same. On the role of religion and ethnicity in politics, 37.9 per cent of Sri Lankans said that the role of Buddhism in Sri Lankan politics is the right amount while 37.8 per cent of Sri Lankans said that the role is too much. The view that the role of Buddhism in Sri Lankan politics is too much is felt by majority of the Tamil (79.3 per cent), Up Country Tamil (91.1 per cent) and Muslim (83.4 per cent) communities while only 23.1 per cent from the Sinhalese community felt the same. Close to 50 per cent of Sinhalese believe that it is the right amount.
Conducted in the 25 districts of the country, the SI 2014 survey captured the opinion of 1900 Sri Lankans from the four main ethnic groups. The selection of respondents was random across the country except in a few areas in the Northern Province where access was difficult. Fieldwork was conducted from June – July 2014.