Features

Apportioned Seats in Parliament and the “National List”

Published

4 years ago

2022/07/3

by Prof. Savitri Goonesekere

The recent appointment of well known entrepreneur and businessman Dhammika Perera to a seat in Parliament on the resignation of former minister Basil Rajapakse was challenged in several petitions in the Supreme Court. These petitions mainly alleged a violation of the fundamental right to equality, nondiscrimination, and non arbitrary decision making in the filling of a vacancy created in regard to a seat in Parliament occupied (not through election,) but APPORTIONMENT of seats, based on the votes cast at a General election. This concept of apportionment of 29 of the total number of seats in the electoral system of proportional representation was introduced into the Constitution’s provisions governing elections and the Peoples’ franchise, by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1988.

The appointment of Mr. Perera to Parliament on an apportioned seat, in the midst of an unprecedented and grave political and economic crisis generated public controversy. Some considered his appointment a welcome effort to bring entrepreneurial experience into government at this time. Others viewed the appointment negatively and challenged its validity in these petitions in the Supreme Court. Mr. Basil Rajapaksa’s appointment had not been challenged in this manner. Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka had also held an apportioned seat, which had been challenged unsuccessfully in Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) v. Kabir Hashim in SC Appl. 54/2016. The possibility of bringing experts into Parliament through the apportioned seat process on the national list has been discussed even recently as a useful response to the current crisis.

The current petitions are of public concern, as they raised an important issue on the People’s right to franchise, and the meaning of Constitutional and legal regulations applicable to apportionment of seats in Parliament, on the basis of the Peoples’ exercise of their voting rights. The case was an opportunity to clarify the law and practice on this important topic relating to the franchise, as well as the eligibility of persons to occupy 29 apportioned seats in Parliament.

The petitions in the Dhammika Perera case were dismissed by the Supreme Court, at the preliminary procedural stage of granting leave to proceed with the litigation. No reasons were given for the decision, though the court heard arguments of Counsel in support of and in opposition to the petition. However the Court clarified that the refusal of leave to proceed was a split decision, with one dissent in a bench of three judges. Since no reasons were given, the approach of the majority and the dissenting judge to the legal issues raised by Counsel in regard to appointments to apportioned seats in Parliament, remains unknown to the public.

The decision of the court not to write a judgment and give reasons for refusing leave after hearing Counsel in the Dhammika Perera case at this preliminary procedural stage, follows the practice of the Court in exercising the discretion given in Article 126 (2) of the Constitution. The right to obtain relief for violation of a fundamental right is a right guaranteed by Article 17 and Articles 126 (2) and (4). The Supreme Court has been given a discretion by Article 126 (2) to decide whether it will grant leave to proceed with the application for relief and remedy for alleged violations of fundamental rights. This follows a tradition in Common law jurisdictions to ensure that courts are not overburdened in litigation, also reflecting a policy approach on avoiding unnecessary costs of litigation. Yet there is also jurisprudence in the Supreme Court indicating a different approach to the granting of leave to proceed.

In the Shirani Bandaranyake Appointment to the Supreme Court Case (1997 1 SLR 92 ) the Chief Justice decided that the case raised an important issue of “general and public importance” and referred the applications to a bench of seven judges. Justice Mark Fernando speaking for the court said that “having regard to the complexity and gravity of the questions involved, Counsel for both the petitioners and respondents were heard in support of and opposition to the petitions.” (p 93). Justice Fernando and Justice Perera wrote separate judgments, in a unanimous decision of the Court to refuse leave to proceed, creating important jurisprudence on this subject.

If this approach articulated by Justice Mark Fernando guides the Supreme Court, and is clarified in Rules of the Supreme Court, petitioners and the public will know the basis on which the Supreme Court refuses leave to proceed with a Fundamental Rights Application, relating to an important issue of public concern. The issue of apportionment of seats in Parliament is an issue of public concern to voters, just as appointments to high public office, as in the Shirani Bandaranayaka case also raised issues of public concern. Giving reasons can only enhance the stature of the court as an indispensable institution in the administration of justice in a Constitution that perceives the courts as exercising the “judicial power of the People” [Article 4 (c)]. This was also referred to in the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Dissolution of Parliament case (2018.) Citing an American case, Baker v Car (1962), His Lordship HNJ Perera CJ said “the court’s authority possessed of neither purse nor sword ultimately rests on sustained public confidence.”(Sampanthan v AG (2018) p 69).

The unresolved constitutional issue of appointments to Parliament on apportionment, and the National List.

Article 99A introduced by the 14th Amendment is very clear on the persons eligible to occupy apportioned seats after a general election. The meaning of this Article, in the context of the statute law also regulating elections i.e. the Parliamentary Election Act No. 1 of 1981 was the crux of the case argued by Counsel for the petitioners in the Dhammika Perera case. Geoffrey Alagaratnam PC former President of the Bar Association and other eminent lawyers who supported the petitions drew attention to the need to clarify the law on this important issue of public concern, because of a seeming conflict between the Constitutional provision (Article 99A) and Section 64 (5) of the Parliamentary Elections Act (1981).

Article 99A of the Constitution clearly states that persons allocated apportioned seats in Parliament based on the votes cast at a general election must be persons eligible to be MPs, whose name appears on a list submitted within the period of nominations, to the Commissioner of Elections. This list is now popularly known as the “National List,” from which a person may be nominated to hold a seat on the basis of apportionment and votes cast at the general elections. Article 99A also includes another category of persons who can hold such a seat. This is a person whose name is on an electoral list. Article 99A does not indicate that there is any other requirement of eligibility. It is therefore clear from Article 99A of the Constitution that both defeated candidates and persons on the National List are eligible to occupy apportioned seats.

The issue of defeated candidates occupying these seats is therefore an ethical rather than a legal or Constitutional issue. Consequently Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe is lawfully occupying the seat apportioned to the UNP, though he was defeated at the General Elections (2019) and also publicly stated that candidates defeated at a General election should not occupy seats apportioned to the party. However Article 99A as argued by Counsel in the Dhammika Perera case does not permit persons who are NOT on the National list submitted at the time of nominations, to be allocated apportioned seats in Parliament. The procedure set out in Article 99A is for the Commissioner of Elections to request a Secretary of a party to nominate persons to fill an apportioned seat. The language of 99A does not enable persons outside these categories to be considered eligible to hold these apportioned seats.

The popular idea that a party in Parliament, particularly at this time of a national crisis, can bring to Parliament professionals and others with special expertise, does not conform to the eligibility criterion set out in Article 99A. Therefore, persons who occupied these apportioned seats, whether Basil Rajapaksa or Sarath Fonseka also did not satisfy the Constitutional provision on eligibility to fill an apportioned seat. Article 99A seems to have been ignored in discussions on appointments to Parliament on the national list.

It is also clear that this Article 99A in the Constitution casts a duty and responsibility upon the Commissioner of Elections and the Secretary of a Political Party who nominates a person to an apportioned seat to abide by Article 99A. The Commissioner is a public servant, and he can be sued in a fundamental rights violation case relevant to wrongful allocation of an apportioned seat. The Secretary of a Political party is a Non-State actor but becomes liable for a wrong decision since our courts connect him to the inaction of the State or government agency in ensuring conformity to the Constitution. (Faiz v. AG (1995 1 SL 372).

The PROVISIONS in the Parliamentary Elections Act 1 of 1981 on VACANCIES to one of the 29 APPORTIONED seats in Parliament

The Parliamentary Elections Act (1981) Section 64 was amended consequent to the 14th Amendment in 1988. This provision in the principal enactment of 1981 dealt with filling of vacancies in seats in Parliament. When the 14th Amendment provided in Article 99A for a National list, and apportionment of seats, a new provision Section 64 (5) was introduced into the principal legislation, the Parliamentary Elections Act, to cover the procedure for filling vacancies to these apportioned seats. Section 64 (5) enacted by an amendment of 1988, i.e. the same year as the 14th Amendment, uses the words “Notwithstanding anything in the previous provisions” (ie on vacancies in regard to ordinary seats in the principle enactment of 1981), and sets out a PROCEDURE for filling vacancies in the special APPORTIONED seats created by Article 99A of the 14th Amendment. This 1988 provision Section 64 (5) added to the Parliamentary Elections Act indicates that in the case of persons occupying these apportioned seats, a vacancy is filled by “the Secretary General of Parliament informing the Commissioner of Elections who then requires the Secretary of the Party or leader of the relevant independent group apportioned a seat to nominate a member of such party ” to fill the vacancy. It is this language on PROCEDURE in filling vacancies to apportioned seats, that is now being used to argue that the Secretary of a party or leader of an independent group has complete discretion to appoint a person of his/ her choice to fill a vacancy.

Our Constitution has a controversial Article 16 (1) that has been consistently criticized, which does not permit judicial review of legislation once it is enacted by Parliament. Even in jurisdictions like India, South Africa and Canada, that permit judicial review of legislation for non-conformity with the Constitution, there is a legal concept of “Presumption of Constitutionality of legislation” and “reading down” legislation in order to follow a “purposive” interpretation that seeks to harmonize the basic law of the land, a country’s Constitution and legislation enacted by Parliament.

In Sri Lanka in the in the cases AG v Sampath SC Appeal 17/2013 and SC Ref 3/2008 the Supreme Court refused to follow a provision in the amended Penal Code of 1995 that provided for minimum sentences on the ground that the legislation could not be interpreted as restricting the judicial discretion of the Courts. Both these judgments held that the power of interpretation of law is embedded in the judicial power recognized in Art 4 (c) of the Constitution. This could not be restricted by ordinary law (in this case the amended Penal Code) since the Constitution is the Supreme Law. While this decision may be critiqued as in conflict with the restricted power of post enactment judicial review of legislation in our Constitution, the decisions indicate that there is a rationale for interpretations that seek to give predominance to the Constitution as the basic law of the land.

As Mr. Alagaratnam PC and other Counsel for the petitioners argued in the Dhammika Perera case, interpreting section 64 (5) of the Elections Act as giving an absolute discretion to the Secretary of a Party or the leader of an independent group apportioned a seat, to fill a vacancy in that seat, means that he/she can ignore completely the criterion on eligibility for apportioned seats, so clearly set out in the 14th Amendment, when it introduced a concept of apportioning 29 seats. This is surely a situation where an interpretation must be adopted that recognizes rather than undermines the significance of basic Constitutional provisions on eligibility to occupy a seat in the legislature.

In CPA vs Kabir Hashim, Sripavan CJ delivered a short judgment, when refusing leave to proceed in a petition challenging the nomination of Sarath Fonseka to a vacancy in an apportioned seat. His Lordship held that the issue of filling vacancies was not considered in Article 99A of the Constitution (on apportioned seats). This was regulated by the procedures detailed in Section 64 (5) of the Parliamentary Elections Act which, His Lordship said, gave a discretion to the secretary of the party or the leader of an independent group to nominate the person to fill a vacancy in an apportioned seat. His Lordship did not, with respect, address the substantive requirements for eligibility to occupy an apportioned seat, that were set out in Article 99A, when the 14th Amendment to the Constitution created this new category of seats in our Parliament. His Lordship’s opinion also takes a different approach to ordinary law vis- a-vis the Constitution as the “supreme law of the land,” in the cases referred to earlier.

It is with respect difficult to consider the decision in CPA v. Kabir Hashim as a judicial precedent that binds the Supreme Court, and prevents the matter being considered again in light of the specific language in Article 99A of the Constitution on eligibility to occupy an apportioned seat in Parliament. The Supreme Court has not followed a strict approach to the concept of “stare decisis” or binding precedent in a context where the structure of our courts has changed through both statutes and post independence Constitutions. The capacity of a superior court to contribute to development of the law without being fettered by previous decisions is reflected in important decisions of judges like Basnayaka CJ in Bandahamy v. Senanayake (1960) 62 NLR 313 and Wanasundere J in Walker Sons v Gunathilleke (1978- 19801 SLR 231.

Conclusion

It is in the public interest that the meaning of Article 99A and the policy on apportioning 29 seats in Parliament is clarified and addressed in any further amendments to the Constitution. Giving a complete discretion to a non-State official like a Party Secretary to choose persons entitled to fill vacancies in apportioned seats based on electoral votes, undermines voting rights. There is also the public interest in having persons qualified to occupy these apportioned seats being nominated initially, or in filling vacancies that are created later. More specific criterion of eligibility to take apportioned seats will also address the public interest in bringing a diverse range of experience to the legislature of the country through the National list. Such an amendment should also clearly make defeated candidates not eligible to occupy such seats.

The Dhammika Perera case raises once again an issue of public concern in regard to filling vacancies in the 29 apportioned seats in Parliament, either through the national or electoral list. Clarifying the law can be done without delay through the contemplated current Constitutional reforms. If this is not done, it seems important for the Chief Justice to appoint at least a Divisional Bench to provide a clear interpretation of Article 99A of the Constitution or point to the important need for clarity on this matter through a Constitutional amendment.

Litigation in the courts and ground realities indicate that there are many important unresolved issues that require constitutional reform. Even within the current Presidential system, the cumbersome procedure for impeachment of a President and also judges of the Supreme Court, and appointments on the National List, clearly require significant review and reform. And yet, ad hoc constitutional reform efforts like the 19th Amendment, 20th Amendment and the proposed 21st Amendment, seem to ignore public concern for reforms in these important areas. There should be public advocacy to ensure that all these areas are addressed immediately in the current constitutional reform process.

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Rohana Wijeweera

It is also different from all past governments as it faces new and different challenges

No one knows whether the already broken ceasefire between the US and Iran, with Israel as a reluctant adjunct, will last the full 10 days, or what will come thereafter. The world’s economic woes are not over and the markets are yo-yoing in response to Trump’s twitches and Iran’s gate keeping at the Strait of Hormuz. The gloomy expert foretelling is that full economic normalcy will not return until the year is over even if the war were to end with the ceasefire. That means continuing challenges for Sri Lanka and more of the tough learning in the art of governing for the NPP.

The NPP government has been doing what most governments in Asia have been doing to cope with the current global crisis, which is also an Asian crisis insofar as oil supplies and other supply chains are concerned. What the government can and must do additionally is to be totally candid with the people and keep them informed of everything that it is doing – from monitoring import prices to the timely arranging of supplies, all the details of tender, the tracking of arrivals, and keeping the distribution flow through the market without bottlenecks. That way the government can eliminate upstream tender rackets and downstream hoarding swindles. People do not expect miracles from their government, only honest, sincere and serious effort in difficult circumstances. Backed up by clear communication and constant public engagement.

But nothing is going to stop the flow of criticisms against the NPP government. That is a fact of Sri Lankan politics. Even though the opposition forces are weak and have little traction and even less credibility, there has not been any drought in the criticisms levelled against the still fledgling government. These criticisms can be categorized as ideological, institutional and oppositional criticisms, with each category having its own constituency and/or commentators. The three categories invariably overlap and there are instances of criticisms that excite only the pundits but have no political resonance.

April 5 anniversary nostalgia

There is also a new line of criticism that might be inspired by the April 5 anniversary nostalgia for the 1971 JVP insurrection. This new line traces the NPP government to the distant roots of the JVP – its April 1965 founding “in a working-class home in Akmeemana, Galle” by a 22-year old Rohana Wijeweera and seven others; the short lived 1971 insurrection that was easily defeated; and the much longer and more devastating second (1987 to 1989) insurrection that led to the elimination of the JVP’s frontline leaders including Wijeweera, and brought about a change in the JVP’s political direction with commitment to parliamentary democracy. So far, so good, as history goes.

But where the nostalgic narrative starts to bend is in attempting a straight line connection from the 1965 Akmeemana origins of the JVP to the national electoral victories of the NPP in 2024. And the bend gets broken in trying to bridge the gap between the “founding anti-imperialist economics” of the JVP and the practical imperatives of the NPP government in “governing a debt-laden small open economy.” Yet this line of criticism differs from the other lines of criticism that I have alluded to, but more so for its moral purpose than for its analytical clarity. The search for clarity could begin with question – why is the NPP government more than a JVP offspring? The answer is not so simple, but it is also not too complicated.

For starters, the JVP was a political response to the national and global conditions of the 1960s and 1970s, piggybacking socialism on the bandwagon of ethno-nationalism in a bi-polar world that was ideologically split between status quo capitalism and the alternative of socialism. The NPP government, on the other hand, is not only a response to, but is also a product of the conditions of the 2010s and 2020s. The twain cannot be more different. Nothing is the same between then and now, locally and globally.

A pragmatic way to look at the differences between the origins of the JVP and the circumstances of the NPP government is to look at the very range of criticisms that are levelled against the NPP government. What I categorize as ideological criticisms include criticisms of the government’s pro-IMF and allegedly neo-liberal economic policies, as well as the government’s foreign policy stances – on Israel, on the current US-Israel war against Iran, the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, and the apparent closeness to the Modi government in India. These criticisms emanate from the non-JVP left and Sinhala Buddhist nationalists.

Strands of nationalism

To digress briefly, there are several strands in the overall bundle of Sri Lankan nationalism. There is the liberal inclusive strand, the left-progressive strand, the exclusive Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist (SBN) strand, and the defensive strands of minority nationalisms. Given Sri Lanka’s historical political formations and alliances, much overlapping goes on between the different strands. The overlapping gets selective on an issue by issue basis, which in itself is not unwelcome insofar as it promotes plurality in place of exclusivity.

Historically as well, and certainly after 1956, the SBN strand has been the dominant strand of nationalism in Sri Lanka and has had the most influential say in every government until now. Past versions of the JVP frequently straddled the dominant SBN space. Currently, however, the dominant SBN strand is in one of its more dormant phases and the NPP government could be a reason for the current dormancy. This is an obvious difference between the old JVP and the new NPP.

A second set of criticisms, or institutional criticisms, emanate from political liberals and human rights activists and these are about the NPP government’s actions or non-actions in regard to constitutional changes, the future of the elected executive presidency, the status of provincial devolution and the timing of provincial council elections, progress on human rights issues, the resolution of unfinished postwar businesses including the amnesia over mass graves. These criticisms and the issues they represent are also in varying ways the primary concerns of the island’s Tamils, Muslims and the Malaiyaka (planntationn) Tamils. As with the overlapping between the left and the non-minority nationalists, there is also overlapping between the liberal activists and minority representatives.

A third category includes what might be called oppositional criticisms and they counterpose the JVP’s past against the NPP’s present, call into question the JVP’s commitment to multi-party democracy and raise alarms about a creeping constitutional dictatorship. This category also includes criticisms of the NPP government’s lack of governmental experience and competence; alleged instances of abuse of power, mismanagement and even corruption; alleged harassment of past politicians; and the failure to find the alleged mastermind behind the 2019 Easter bombings. At a policy and implementational level, there have been criticisms of the government’s educational reforms and electricity reforms, the responses to cyclone Ditwah, and the current global oil and economic crises. The purveyors of oppositional criticisms are drawn from the general political class which includes political parties, current and past parliamentarians, as well as media pundits.

Criticisms as expectations

What is common to all three categories of criticisms is that they collectively represent what were understood to be promises by the NPP before the elections, and have become expectations of the NPP government after the elections. It is the range and nature of these criticisms and the corresponding expectations that make the NPP government a lot more than a mere JVP offspring, and significantly differentiate it from every previous government.

The deliverables that are expected of the NPP government were never a part of the vocabulary of the original JVP platform and programs. The very mode of parliamentary politics was ideologically anathema to the JVP of Akmeemana. And there was no mention of or concern for minority rights, or constitutional reforms. On foreign policy, it was all India phobia without Anglo mania – a halfway variation of Sri Lanka’s mainstream foreign policy of Anglo mania and India phobia. For a party of the rural proletariat, the JVP was virulently opposed to the plantation proletariat. The JVP’s version of anti-imperialist economics would hardly have excited the Sri Lankan electorate at any time, and certainly not at the present time.

At the same time, the NPP government is also the only government that has genealogical antecedents to a political movement or organization like the JVP. That in itself makes the NPP government unique among Sri Lanka’s other governments. The formation of the NPP is the culmination of the evolution of the JVP that began after the second insurrection with the shedding of political violence, acceptance of political plurality and commitment to electoral democracy.

But the evolution was not entirely a process of internal transformation. It was also a response to a rapidly and radically changing circumstances both within Sri Lanka and beyond. This evolution has not been a rejection of the founding socialist purposes of the JVP in 1968, but their adaptation in the endless political search, under constantly changing conditions, for a non-violent, socialist and democratic framework that would facilitate the full development of the human potential of all Sri Lankans.

The burden of expectations is unmistakable, but what is also remarkable is their comprehensiveness and the NPP’s formal commitment to all of them at the same time. No previous government shouldered such an extensive burden or showed such a willing commitment to each and every one of the expectations. In the brewing global economic crisis, the criticisms, expectations and the priorities of the government will invariably be focussed on keeping the economy alive and alleviating the day-to-day difficulties of millions of Sri Lankan families. While what the NPP government can and must do may not differ much from what other Asian governments – from Pakistan to Vietnam – are doing, it could and should do better than what any and all past Sri Lankan governments did when facing economic challenges.

by Rajan Philips

Features

A Fragile Ceasefire: Pakistan’s Glory and Israel’s Sabotage

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Smokes over Beirut: Israel’s Ceasefire Attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon

After threatening to annihilate one of the planet’s oldest civilizations, TACO* Trump chickened out again by grasping the ceasefire lifeline that Pakistan had assiduously prepared. Trump needed the ceasefire badly to stem the mounting opposition to the war in America. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted the war to continue because he needed it badly for his political survival. So, he contrived a fiction and convinced Trump that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire. Trump as usual may not have noticed that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Shariff had clearly indicated Lebanon’s inclusion in his announcement of the ceasefire at 7:50 PM, Tuesday, on X. Ten minutes before Donald Trump’s fake deadline.

True to form on Wednesday, Israel unleashed the heaviest assault by far on Lebanon, reportedly killing over 300 people, the highest single-day death toll in the current war. Iran responded by re-closing the Strait of Hormuz and questioning the need for talks in Islamabad over the weekend. There were other incidents as well, with an oil refinery attacked in Iran, and Iranian drones and missiles slamming oil and gas infrastructure in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.

The US tried to insist that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire, with the argumentative US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Budapest, Hungary, campaigning for Viktor Orban, calling the whole thing a matter of “bad faith negotiation” as well as “legitimate misunderstanding” on the part of Iran, and warning Iran that “it would be dumb to jeopardise its ceasefire with Washington over Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.”

But as the attack in Lebanon drew international condemnation – from Pope Leo to UN Secretary General António Guterres, and several world leaders, and amidst fears of Lebanon becoming another Gaza with 1,500 people including 130 children killed and more than a million people displaced, Washington got Israel to stop its “lawn mowing” in southern Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to “open direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,”. Lebanese President Joeseph Aoun has also called for “a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, followed by direct negotiations between them.” Israel’s involvement in Lebanon remains a wild card that threatens the ceasefire and could scuttle the talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Saturday in Islamabad.

Losers and Winners

After the ceasefire, both the Trump Administration and Iran have claimed total victories while the Israeli government wants the war to continue. The truth is that after more than a month into nonstop bombing of Iran, America and Israel have won nothing. Only Iran has won something it did not have when Trump and Netanyahu started their war. Iran now has not only a say over but control of the Strait of Hormuz. The ceasefire acknowledges this. Both Trump and Netanyahu are under fire in their respective countries and have no allies in the world except one another.

The real diplomatic winner is Pakistan. Salman Rushdie’s palimpsest-country has emerged as a key player in global politics and an influential mediator in a volatile region. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Field Marshal Asim Munir have both been praised by President Trump and credited for achieving the current ceasefire. The Iranian regime has also been effusive in its praise of Pakistan’s efforts.

It is Pakistan that persisted with the effort after initial attempts at backdoor diplomacy by Egypt, Pakistan and Türkiye started floundering. Sharing a 900 km border and deep cultural history with Iran, and having a skirmish of its own on the eastern front with Afghanistan, Pakistan has all the reason to contain and potentially resolve the current conflict in Iran. Although a majority Sunni Muslim country, Pakistan is home to the second largest Shia Muslim population after Iran, and is the easterly terminus of the Shia Arc that stretches from Lebanon. The country also has a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia that includes Pakistan’s nuclear cover for the Kingdom. An open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would have put Pakistan in a dangerously awkward position.

It is now known and Trump has acknowledged that China had a hand in helping Iran get to the diplomatic table. Pakistan used its connections well to get Chinese diplomatic reinforcement. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Beijing to brief his Chinese counterpart and secured China’s public support for the diplomatic efforts. The visit produced a Five-Point Plan that became a sequel to America’s 15-point proposal and the eventual ten-point offer by Iran.

There is no consensus between parties as to which points are where and who is agreeing to what. The chaos is par for the course the way Donald Trumps conducts global affairs. So, all kudos to Pakistan for quietly persisting with old school toing and froing and producing a semblance of an agreement on a tweet without a parchment.

It is also noteworthy that Israel has been excluded from all the diplomatic efforts so far. And it is remarkable, but should not be surprising, the way Trump has sidelined Isreal from the talks. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been enjoying overwhelming support of Israelis for starting the war of his life against Iran and getting the US to spearhead it. But now the country is getting confused and is exposed to Iranian missiles and drones far more than ever before. The Israeli opposition is finally coming alive realizing what little has Netanyahu’s wars have achieved and at what cost. Israel has alienated a majority of Americans and has no ally anywhere else.

It will be a busy Saturday in Islamabad, where the US and Iranian delegations are set to meet. Iran would seem to have insisted and secured the assurance that the US delegation will be led by Vice President Vance, while including Trump’s personal diplomats – Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iran has not announced its team but it is expected to be led, for protocol parity, by Iran’s Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and will likely include its suave Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Vice President Vance’s attendance will be the most senior US engagement with Iran since Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal under President Obama.

The physical arrangements for the talks are still not public although Islamabad has been turned into a security fortress given the stakes and risks involved. The talks are expected to be ‘indirect’, with the two delegations in separate rooms and Pakistani officials shuttling between them. The status of Iran’s enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will be the major points of contention. After Netanyahu’s overreach on Wednesday, Lebanon is also on the short list

The 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan) took months of negotiations and involved multiple parties besides the US and Iran, including China, France, Germany, UK, Russia and the EU. That served the cause of regional and world peace well until Trump tore up the deal to spite Obama. It would be too much to expect anything similar after a weekend encounter in Islamabad. But if the talks could lead to at least a permanent ceasefire and the return to diplomacy that would be a huge achievement.

(*As of 2025–2026, Donald Trump is nicknamed “TACO Trump” by Wall Street traders and investors as an acronym for “”. This term highlights a perceived pattern of him making strong tariff threats that cause market panic, only to later retreat or weaken them, causing a rebound.)

by Rajan Philips

Features

CIA’s hidden weapon in Iran

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

We are passing through the ten-day interregnum called a ceasefire over the War on Iran. The world may breathe briefly, but this pause is not reassurance—it is a deliberate interlude, a vacuum in which every actor positions for the next escalation. Iran is far from secure. Behind the veneer of calm, external powers and local forces are preparing, arming, and coordinating. The United States is unlikely to deploy conventional ground troops; the next moves will be executed through proxies whose behaviour will defy expectation. These insurgents are shaped, guided, and amplified by intelligence and technology, capable of moving silently, striking precisely, and vanishing before retaliation. The ceasefire is not peace—it is the prelude to disruption.

The Kurds, historically instruments of Tehran against Baghdad, are now vectors for the next insurgency inside Iran. This movement is neither organic nor local. It is externally orchestrated, with the CIA as the principal architect. History provides the blueprint: under Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, Kurdish uprisings were manipulated, never supported out of sympathy. They were instruments of leverage against Iraq, a way to weaken a rival while projecting influence beyond Iran’s borders. Colonel Isa Pejman, Iranian military intelligence officer who played a role in Kurdish affairs, recalled proposing support for a military insurgency in Iraq, only for the Shah to respond coldly: “[Mustafa] Barzani killed my Army soldiers… please forget it. The zeitgeist and regional context have been completely transformed.” The Kurds were pawns, but pawns with strategic weight. Pejman later noted: “When the Shah wrote on the back of the letter ‘Accepted’ to General Pakravan, I felt I was the true leader of the Kurdish movement.” The seeds planted then are now being activated under new, technologically empowered auspices.

Iran’s geographic vulnerabilities make this possible. The Shah understood the trap: a vast territory with porous borders, squeezed by Soviet pressure from the north and radical Arab states from the west. “We are in a really terrible situation since Moscow’s twin pincers coming down through Kabul and Baghdad surround us,” he warned Asadollah Alam. From Soviet support for the Mahabad Republic to Barzani’s dream of a unified Kurdistan, Tehran knew an autonomous Kurdish bloc could destabilize both Iraq and Iran. “Since the formation of the Soviet-backed Mahabad Republic, the Shah had been considerably worried about the Kurdish threat,” a US assessment concluded.

Today, the Kurds’ significance is operational, not symbolic. The CIA’s recent rescue of a downed F-15 airman using Ghost Murmur, a quantum magnetometry system, demonstrated the reach of technology in intelligence operations. The airman survived two days on Iranian soil before extraction. This was not a simple rescue; it was proof that highly mobile, technologically augmented operations can penetrate Iranian territory with surgical precision. The same logic applies to insurgency preparation: when individuals can be tracked through electromagnetic signatures, AI-enhanced surveillance, and drones, proxy forces can be armed, guided, and coordinated with unprecedented efficiency. The Kurds are no longer pawns—they are a living network capable of fracturing Iranian cohesion while providing deniability to foreign powers.

Iran’s engagement with Iraqi Kurds was always containment, not empowerment. The Shah’s goal was never Kurdish independence. “We do not approve an independent [Iraqi] Kurdistan,” he stated explicitly. Yet their utility as instruments of regional strategy was undeniable. The CIA’s revival of these networks continues a long-standing pattern: insurgent groups integrated into the wider calculus of international power. Israel, Iran, and the Kurds formed a triangular strategic relationship that terrified Baghdad. “For Baghdad, an Iranian-Israeli-Kurdish triangular alliance was an existential threat,” contemporary reports noted. This is the template for modern manipulation: a networked insurgency, externally supported, capable of destabilizing regimes from within while giving foreign powers plausible deniability.

Iran today faces fragility. Years of sanctions, repression, and targeted strikes have weakened educational and scientific hubs; Sharif University in Tehran, one of the country’s leading scientific centres, was bombed. Leaders, scholars, and innovators have been eliminated. Military readiness is compromised. Generations-long setbacks leave Iran exposed. Against this backdrop, a Kurdish insurgency armed with drones, AI-supported surveillance, and precision munitions could do more than disrupt—it could fracture the state internally. The current ten-day ceasefire is a mirage; the next wave of revolt is already being orchestrated.

CIA involvement is deliberate. Operations are coordinated with allied intelligence agencies, leveraging Kurdish grievances, mobility, and ethnolinguistic networks. The Kurds’ spread across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria provides operational depth—allowing insurgents to strike, vanish, and regroup with impunity. Barzani understood leverage decades ago: “We could be useful to the United States… Look at our strategic location on the flank of any possible Soviet advance into the Middle East.” Today, the calculation is inverted: Kurds are no longer instruments against Baghdad; they are potential disruptors inside Tehran itself.

Technology is central. Ghost Murmur’s ability to detect a single heartbeat remotely exemplifies how intelligence can underpin insurgent networks. Drones, satellite communications, AI predictive modeling, and battlefield sensors create an infrastructure that can transform a dispersed Kurdish insurgency into a high-precision operation. Iran can no longer rely on fortifications or loyalty alone; the external environment has been recalibrated by technology.

History provides the roadmap. The Shah’s betrayal of Barzani after the 1975 Algiers Agreement demonstrated that external actors can manipulate both Iranian ambitions and Kurdish loyalties. “The Shah sold out the Kurds,” Yitzhak Rabin told Kissinger. “We could not station our troops there and keep fighting forever,” the Shah explained to Alam. The Kurds are a pivot, not a cause. Networks once acting under Tehran’s influence are now being repurposed against it.

The insurgency exploits societal fissures. Kurdish discontent in Iran, suppressed for decades, provides fertile ground. Historical betrayal fuels modern narratives: “Barzani claimed that ‘Isa Pejman sold us out to the Shah and the Shah sold us out to the US.’” Intelligence agencies weaponize these grievances, pairing them with training, technological augmentation, and covert support.

Geopolitically, the stakes are immense. The Shah’s defensive-offensive doctrine projected Iranian influence outward to neutralize threats. Today, the logic is inverted: the same networks used to contain Iraq are being readied to contain Iran. A technologically augmented Kurdish insurgency, covertly backed, could achieve in months what decades of sanctions, diplomacy, or repression have failed to accomplish.

The operation will be asymmetric, high-tech, and dispersed. UAVs, quantum-enhanced surveillance, encrypted communications, and AI-directed logistics will dominate. Conventional Iranian forces are vulnerable to this type of warfare. As Pejman reflected decades ago, “Our Army was fighting there, rather than the Kurds who were harshly defeated… How could we keep such a place?” Today, the challenge is magnified by intelligence superiority on the insurgents’ side.

This is not a temporary flare-up. The CIA and its allies are constructing a generational network of influence. Experience from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon proves these networks endure once operationalised. The Shah recognized this: “Iran’s non-state foreign policy under the Shah’s reign left a lasting legacy for the post-Revolution era.” Today, those instruments are being remade as vectors of foreign influence inside Iran.

The future is stark. Iran faces not simply external threats, but a carefully engineered insurgency exploiting historical grievances, technological superiority, and precise intelligence. The Kurds are central. History, technology, and geopolitical calculation converge to create a transformative threat. Tehran’s miscalculations, betrayals, and suppressed grievances now form the lattice for this insurgency. The Kurds are positioned not just as an ethnic minority, but as a vector of international strategy—Tehran may be powerless to stop it.

Iran’s containment strategies have been weaponized, fused with technology, and inverted against it. The ghosts of Barzani’s Peshmerga, the shadows of Algiers, and the Shah’s strategic vision now converge with Ghost Murmur, drones, and AI. Tehran faces a paradox: the instruments it once controlled are now calibrated to undermine its authority. The next Kurdish revolt will not only fight in the mountains but in the electromagnetic shadows where intelligence operates, consequences are lethal, and visibility is scarce.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa