Saturday 29th March, 2025

University students who campaigned very hard to ensure the JVP-led NPP’s victory in last year’s elections, may have thought they would be able to conduct a peaceful protest in front of the Health Ministry in support of a group of Allied Health Sciences graduates, without being arrested and hauled up before court. But they were in for a rude shock, yesterday, when the police swooped on the protesters and arrested 27 of them including several Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) members for violating a court order that banned their agitation.

Time was when JVP used to let out howls of protests when the police descended on protests, after obtaining court orders against them, at the behest of previous governments. It condemned police action based on court orders, as draconian tactics employed by dictatorial regimes bent on suppressing the people’s right to protest. It also launched numerous protests against the previous governments in violation of court orders, and even tried to march on the Presidential Secretariat only to be dispersed by the riot police, who used teargas, rubber bullets, and water cannon liberally. At present, the police do as the NPP government says and go all out to obtain court orders banning protests, which they crush, the way they did in the past.

Opinion may be divided on public protests which make already congested urban roads even more chaotic, much to the inconvenience of the public. Police action against protesters may therefore resonate with many people. However, successive governments have not cared to tackle the root causes of public protests––chronic grievances and injustices. The current NPP administration has failed to be different from its predecessors.

The Students’ Union of the Allied Health Sciences Faculty of the University of Peradeniya launched their protest on Thursday, demanding that the government do away with the requirement for its members to sit an examination to join the state health services. The fact that the medical graduates of national universities are recruited to the health service straightaway may have prompted the protesting Allied Health Sciences graduates to make the aforesaid demand. The protesters’ talks with the Health authorities failed yesterday, and they decided to intensify their agitation, coupling it with a fast. The police moved in, made arrests and pulled down a makeshift hut the agitators had put up for their fast. Some student leaders were heard, on television, cursing the NPP leaders they had backed.

The incumbent government should have addressed the grievances of the Allied Health Sciences graduates before they took to the streets. After all, the JVP/NPP made an election pledge to give the graduates of state universities priority in the public sector recruitment. Representatives of the unemployed graduates, at press briefings and in television interviews, play a video of JVP/NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake making the above-mentioned promise during his presidential election campaign last year. In an audio clip, JVP/NPP stalwart and former IUSF Convener, Sunil Handunnetti, is heard telling an unemployed graduate who telephoned him in the run-up to last year’s general election that they (the JVP/NPP leaders) would have to secure their jobs first—meaning election to Parliament—before resolving the issue of graduate unemployment. The members of the unemployed graduates’ association insist that their efforts to contact Minister Handunnetti have since been in vain.

The JVP leveraged its ability to mobilise flash mobs and hold protests to weaken previous governments in defiance of court/police orders. It drove students and workers to agitations, in their thousands, to advance its political agenda, condemning the past governments for using the police and judicial orders to suppress the people’s right to protest. Now, it is employing the same methods as its predecessors to crush protests instead of heeding the grievances of protesters. It ought to get protesters around the table and give them a patient hearing and do its best to solve their problems. That is the least it can do for those who believed its promises and worked tirelessly to ensure its impressive electoral victory last year.

Friday 28th March, 2025

The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) arrested New Democratic Front MP Chamara Sampath Dassanayake yesterday over some alleged financial irregularities during his tenure as the Chief Minister of the Uva Province about nine years ago. The national anti-graft commission is often blamed for slumbering or netting sprats while sparing sharks when it deals with the corrupt. Its action against the likes of Dassanayake is welcome.

The CIABOC, however, should explain why it let the grass grow under its feet for so long before taking action against Dassanayake. Or, has it acted on a complaint made against him recently? If so, the complainant owes an explanation to the public as to why he or she took so long to move the CIABOC against him.

The presence of the likes of Dassanayake in politics has made the public think less of politicians. But it is difficult to get rid of such characters electorally because Sri Lankan voters are swayed by factors such as caste and patronage. Crafty politicians enter Parliament by leveraging pockets of support scattered across electoral districts. The Proportional Representation system has stood them in good stead; it enabled them to survive last year’s ‘maroon wave’.

It is being argued in some quarters that MP Dassanayake was arrested because he is at the forefront of the Opposition’s anti-government campaign, and the JVP/NPP government will have all its critics in Parliament arrested to suppress dissent. This argument is not without some merit, given Dassanayake’s scathing attacks on the government, and the sullied history of the CIABOC, which has blotted its copybook on numerous occasions by launching politically motivated investigations against the Opposition politicians, and opening escape routes for ruling party members who face legal action. So, the Opposition may be able to cast suspicions on the integrity of the CIABOC investigations against its members.

What we have been witnessing on the political front during the past several months resembles a replay of the early stages of the Yahapalana rule, which was characterised by numerous arrests. A large number of political rivals of the UNP-led Yahapalana government were summoned, questioned and arrested by the CID, which then bussed them to courts, some of which were kept open until midnight! Most of those suspects were remanded and prosecuted, but none of them were sent to jail.

Under the current dispensation as well, the police go hell for leather to make arrests, but most suspects obtain bail. It may be recalled that the CID went so far as to send a team from Colombo all the way to Beliatta to arrest former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second son, Yoshitha, in January 2025. It could have asked him to visit its headquarters and make a statement, or even arrested him in Colombo itself.

The police have also recorded a statement from Yoshitha over a recent nightclub brawl, where several persons described as his associates set upon a bouncer. Before last year’s elections, the JVP-led NPP had the public believe that it would take stringent action against all lawbreakers, especially the perpetrators of serious crimes. But today the NPP is floating like a bee and stinging like a butterfly in a manner of speaking. It said it had more than 400 files on various corrupt deals involving its political rivals. What has become of them?

Let the police be urged to concentrate more on probing grave crimes such as the assassinations of The Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and popular rugby player Wasim Thajudeen. If such emblematic crimes can be solved without further delay, the government will be able to ensure that some politicians currently out of power and their kith and kin are sent to jail.

Thursday 27th March, 2025

Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has reportedly said Sri Lanka’s economy still needs intensive care, and much more remains to be done to ensure its full recovery. He has emphasised the need for the incumbent government to tread cautiously on the economic front and secure foreign investment to sustain growth momentum. He has been critical of the manner in which prospective foreign investment in the power and energy sectors is handled under the current dispensation. Pointing out that investment and technology are driving the economies of countries such as China and India, he has called for measures to secure them to enable Sri Lanka’s economy to come out of the woods.

Contrary to the incumbent administration’s contention that its immediate predecessor under Wickremesinghe’s presidential watch did precious little to straighten up the economy, Wickremesinghe had the courage to make several highly unpopular yet vital decisions to resuscitate the economy. The JVP/NPP lambasted his approach to economic crisis management, and even resorted to ageist slur, calling him a ‘seeya’ (grandpa), who was not equal to the task of putting the economy back on an even keel, but ‘seeyanomics’, as it were, helped break the back of the economic crisis so much so that the JVP/NPP administration opted to continue with the last government’s economic recovery strategy as well as the IMF bailout programme.

Wickremesinghe’s unwavering political leadership for stabilising the economy, however, did not help boost his party’s electoral performance owing to his political wrongs, which were legion; he succumbed to the arrogance of power and unflinchingly defended the corrupt. Thankfully, the JVP/NPP has disappointed its critics who expected it to upend the IMF programme, advance its outdated Marxist agenda, and plunge the country into chaos again.

The SJB is critical of the manner in which the JVP/NPP government is handling the economy, and claims that it would have done much better if it had been voted into power. But it is of the view that the country has to stick to the IMF bailout programme, albeit with some changes, which, we believe, are not in the realm of possibility because Sri Lanka lacks bargaining power. Beggars are said to be no choosers. There is reason to believe that despite its rhetoric, the SJB would have had to do exactly what the JVP/NPP is doing at present in respect of the IMF programme and economic management if it had been able to form a government last year.

In the final analysis, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Wickremesinghe and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa see eye to eye on the need to ensure the continuity of the ongoing economic bailout programme. So, the question is why they do not sink their political differences and put their shoulders to the wheel to revitalise the economy.

After all, President Dissanayake during his talkathon on the final day of the budget debate in Parliament, last week, made a very passionate appeal. He said the government and the Opposition had differences and could take on each other to settle political scores, but they had to make common cause on the economic front for the sake of the country. One could not agree with him more. Political battles must not be fought at the expense of the economy. If only the JVP/NPP had practised what it is now preaching to its political rivals when it was in opposition.

Progress has eluded this country because successive governments have played politics with economic management instead of formulating national policies and strategies and adopting a consistent approach to economic management, the way India has done; the Indian economy has doubled to over $4 trillion during the past decade, according to latest IMF data.

The most effective way to build investor confidence and attract foreign investment is for the main political parties, their leaders, and other key stakeholders, especially Dissanayake, Wickremesinghe and Premadasa, to speak with one voice in respect of economic management and investment plans and strategies. Will they do so and prove that their much-avowed love for the country is genuine and not fake?