Features

Sri Lanka Provides Hope for Democracy in the West

Published

2 years ago

2024/09/29

by Dr. Kadira Pethiyagoda
former visiting scholar Oxford University

Sri Lanka’s Presidential election saw a genuine left-winger, from a Marxist party, record a victory that upended the country’s political establishment. But the NPP’s win was more than just historic for this country. A man whose ideology with regard to the fundamental questions of policy differs from all predecessors was elected. This is something presently unimaginable in the West. While it may have been different 100 years ago, today in most major Western countries, there is increasingly no way for the public to vote away the two sacred cows of the establishment: neoliberal capitalism and neo-con foreign policy. Here, Sri Lanka can provide hope.

Economy

In Sri Lanka the debate centred on who could best ease the economic hardship of ordinary people, in the short and long-term. Sri Lankans voted for their core economic interests, even when this meant a break from the status quo. In the West, not only is the question of capitalism versus socialism off the table, but so too the possibility of a politician winning who may have even mild views questioning neoliberalism.

This is accomplished partly by the Western political debate being curated for preoccupation with identity politics (immigration, abortion, gender) or inane platitudes, both unthreatening to the establishment. At most, there may be clashes over micro-differences in niche economic policies (health insurance in the US, child benefits cap in the UK).

The contrast is not simply due to Sri Lanka’s economic situation being more dire. In the US, economic stress for ordinary people has increased with precedents being set in terms of the first generation emerging to be poorer than their parents and declining life expectancy. In the UK, a decade of austerity saw the state criticized by the UN Special Rapporteur in 2019 for maintaining policies that increasingly deny enjoyment of basic economic rights to the vulnerable.

The lack of debate over economic fundamentals today is historically rooted, in large part, in the anti-communist repression and propaganda in the US, in the early 20^th century and 1950s, and the anti-Soviet propaganda across the West throughout the 20^th century. This left an indelible mark on the psyche of the Western public. Leftist or social democratic political parties had to constantly equivocate and apologize to avoid being smeared as ‘traitors’. By the 1970s, the erstwhile ‘Left’, Democrat Party had surrendered the economic argument, retreating to identity issues.

The policy outcomes of this lack of choice speak for themselves. In the early 1960s, the richest 10% of Americans enjoyed around . By 2012, it was over 50%. During the pandemic years 63% of new wealth created was bagged by the richest 1%. assessing public opinion and government policy over 20 years, found that the opinions of “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts” while “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact”. Even at the technical level, the US could no longer be accurately described as a democracy, but as an oligarchy.

Foreign Policy

The same is seen in the other paramount area of government action, foreign policy.

Since Vietnam, the US and those countries whose foreign policies unfailingly mirror the US’s, have entered war after war, almost always without full public support or full public knowledge. From backing the Contras against Nicaragua to the Iraq War and beyond.Today we have a situation where a majority of Americans believe that the US should not do any more to ‘help Ukraine’, yet Congress keeps voting, including by a 3/4 majority, to keep spending billions. Regarding the reheated Israel-Palestine conflict believe Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate. Only of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. The US Congress meanwhile, pledging whatever support Israel needs to continue the war in a vote of 412-10, a 98% majority. Biden’s approval rating is at an all-time low, with all voters disapproving of his foreign policy amidst the conflict. Among those aged 18-34, of his handling of the war. In Britain, 76% of the public support a ceasefire. When Parliament voted, however, only 125 MPs out of 650, just 19%, backed a ceasefire.

This has led to a situation where governments of states like Sri Lanka, often lectured to about democracy, hold stances on the two major international issues that are more aligned with their public’s views than Western governments are with their public. In relation to Israel-Palestine, Global South states are actually more aligned with the views of Western public, than Western governments themselves are.

Sri Lanka’s election campaign did not focus as much as Western states on Gaza or Ukraine, due to Colombo having few direct interests at stake. However, even in relation to the small degree of involvement Sri Lanka did have – previous President Wickremesinghe’s commitment to the US Red Sea force – there was a range of views across candidates, with such decisions unlikely under the new NPP government. On the most important foreign policy/national security matter for Sri Lanka, the questions of separatism and devolution – voters had diversity of choice across candidates, reflected in their geographic spread of votes.

No Choice

In the US and most other Western states, there have long been minor parties which have at various times reflected the will of the majority on these important policy areas. The US Greens provide a useful example. They have consistently aligned with the public on unpopular wars and supported economic policies that benefit the majority. Nevertheless, they are never serious contenders for power. Neither are independent candidates, despite more voters identifying as ‘independents’ than as Democrats or Republicans. This is due to several undemocratic structures such as the legal exclusion of minor candidates from ballots and debates. In the UK, the ‘first past the post’ system has meant that a party that receives only 34% of the vote can win 64% of the parliamentary seats, while millions who voted for minor parties see their will unrepresented.

In contrast, Sri Lanka’s election saw around 38 candidates listed on the ballot for President. Even candidates who ended up winning less than 2,000 votes (in a country of 22 million) were represented on the national ballot paper, giving the public genuine choice. In the end, despite NPP having won just four percent in the 2020 parliamentary elections and AKD having garnered three percent in the 2019 presidential election, Sri Lankans were able to vote him to victory in 2024.

The inability to be represented has led to terminal apathy among Western voters.

The turnout for the last US presidential election was 66% of the voting eligible population. In the UK election it was 60% of those registered to vote, only eligible to register to vote, the lowest since universal suffrage. In Sri Lanka the turnout was 75%.

Media

Democracy requires informed consent. Perhaps the most pivotal actor in the suffocation of democratic choice within the West is the mainstream media. This is due to the unprecedented uniformity of permitted views, due to the unprecedented levels of concentration of media ownership. In the UK around 90% of the newspaper market, 80% when online is included, is . In the US, just six mega-corporations own almost everything people watch, read, and hear. This means those who do not deliberately search for alternative media (because they have to focus their time on economic survival, i.e. the majority) have no freedom of choice, and are not informed. The same conglomerates that profit from war maintain near-exclusive power to tell people the pros and cons of war.

Politicians who dare speak against the prevailing orthodoxy are ignored, dismissed, ridiculed or demonized at industrial scale. Even in Western reporting of AKD’s win – from the paper of record, The New York Times, to The Economist – headlines included the descriptor “Marxist” to draw the attention of a Western public conditioned to be alarmed by it. Media bias is so extreme that the Western public seem to have realized it. Mainstream media corporations are the institutions in the US. In the UK, only of the public trust the media.

This is what Democracy Looks Like

In an era where global war stands wait at the precipice of experience, Western masses have been plunged into a democratic malaise; a deep loss of faith in the electoral system. In America this November, the public’s choice is between two, both of which are the same in the ways that really matter. Voting for a long-shot, for someone who asks questions on the two most important areas of government policy, is deemed a wasted vote.

But now there is hope that it does not have to be this way. While the Western establishment media cluck their tongues at the fact that some country, somewhere, dared to elect a Marxist-leaning President, Sri Lanka has demonstrated what true democracy looks like.

It looks like an open field of dozens of contenders, the popular and the unknown, on the same ballot paper. It looks like a candidate who has never before had a shot at power, actually winning. It looks like a government that will likely prioritize the economic benefits of the country over wars thousands of miles away. It looks like an NPP administration that will likely make foreign policy decisions weighing the national interest, the public will and the Party’s values, rather than the interests, will and values of lobby groups representing foreign countries and corporations. It looks like real change. Today, democracy looks like Sri Lanka.

Dr Kadira Pethiyagoda is the first Sri Lankan born candidate for Oxford University Chancellor. He is a foreign policy expert who was a visiting scholar at Oxford, diplomat and ministerial advisor. He is author of “Indian Foreign Policy and Cultural Values” (Palgrave). @KPethiyagoda

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Features

From stabilisation to transformation without delay

Published

6 hours ago

2026/05/26

Sahan Weerasooriya

At a symposium on reconciliation organised by the National Peace Council last week, more than 250 religious clergy, civic activists and political representatives from different communities gathered to discuss the country’s future. Speaking at the event, Minister Bimal Rathnayake explained the government’s approach to national reconciliation. He said the government viewed the country’s recovery in terms of a three stage process. The first stage was stabilisation, the second was development and the third was transformation. Reconciliation, he implied, would come in that final stage. The participation of Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa at the same symposium, and the constructive nature of his comments, strengthens that hope.

When the present NPP government took office in 2024, the country was emerging from one of the gravest crises in its post Independence history. The economic collapse of 2022 had led to shortages of fuel, food, medicines and electricity. Inflation soared, foreign reserves disappeared and long queues became part of daily life. The political upheaval that followed culminated in the resignation of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after mass public protests under the banner of the Aragalaya movement. The country was then governed by a leadership that spoke the language of reform and reconciliation but was widely perceived as lacking a direct popular mandate.

Sri Lanka’s past experience suggests that stabilisation and transformation cannot be treated as entirely separate stages. Postponing reconciliation until some future moment risks repeating the failures of the past. If transformation is endlessly delayed until a supposedly perfect moment arrives, there will always be new crises and new reasons for postponement. Minister Rathnayake’s contention that the government’s immediate priority has necessarily been stabilisation flows from the government’s awareness of the precarious situation the country is. Over the past two years, the government has succeeded to a significant extent in restoring economic and political stability. Inflation has reduced, shortages have ended and public institutions have regained a degree of functionality.

Guaranteed Changes

On the other hand, the country’s development continues to face challenges due to adverse global conditions, including disruptions caused by conflict in the Middle East and extreme weather events that have affected tourism, trade and the cost of living. The danger is that reconciliation may be indefinitely postponed in the name of stabilisation. This danger can be reduced if the government works proactively with the opposition and civil society to commence practical measures of transformation now rather than later. The participation of Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa at the symposium, and the constructive nature of his comments, has strengthened the sense that bipartisan engagement on reconciliation may now be possible.

The urgency of transformation came through strongly in the presentations made by representatives of the Sri Lanka Tamil and Malaiyaha Tamil communities. ITAK parliamentarian S.Shritharan spoke of the frustration caused by unresolved post war issues in the north and east. He referred to disputes regarding land occupied during the war years, including controversies linked to Buddhist temples and state sponsored settlement activity in areas claimed by local communities. He also pointed to the continuing large scale presence of the security forces in the north and east nearly two decades after the end of the war. These grievances have remained central to Tamil political discourse since the end of the armed conflict in 2009. Families displaced by war continue to seek the return of ancestral lands. Civil society organisations in the north have repeatedly called for greater civilian control over local administration and a reduction in military involvement in civilian life.

Academic research and practical work on the ground have shown that reconciliation cannot be separated from questions of dignity, equality and justice. Former minister Mano Ganesan, leader of the Democratic People’s Front, focused on the longstanding problems faced by the Malaiyaha Tamil community. He spoke passionately about continuing housing shortages, landlessness and economic marginalisation, issues that have persisted since Independence. He also highlighted the devastating impact of recent extreme weather events on estate communities that remain socially and economically vulnerable. The condition of the Malaiyaha Tamil community remains one of the enduring social justice issues in Sri Lanka.

After Independence in 1948, a large proportion of them were denied citizenship and voting rights through legislation that rendered them stateless. Though citizenship rights were eventually restored, the social and economic consequences of exclusion continue to be felt generations later.

Many families still lack secure housing and land ownership despite their immense contribution to the country’s plantation economy. Minister Rathnayake’s responses to both these concerns were politically significant. He argued that recent political developments, including the declining influence of narrow ethnic politics across communities, indicated a major shift in public attitudes. According to him, the political ground has changed in ways that make it increasingly difficult for politicians who rely primarily on ethnic division and communal insecurity to retain public support.

Inter-Connected

There is evidence to support the assessment about the changing political grounding which sees future prospects in the resolution of long standing problems. . The economic collapse of 2022 affected all communities alike and generated a new politics centred on governance, anti corruption, accountability and economic justice. The Aragalaya protests brought together Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims in a common demand for political change. Although ethnic grievances have not disappeared, the crisis created space for a broader understanding that the country’s future depends on cooperation rather than division. Opposition Leader Premadasa’s comments at the symposium reflected this changing political climate. He emphasised that national reconciliation could not be separated from economic justice and the need to address disparities between regions and social classes.v He also mentioned the need for civil society organisations to take this message to the community. This wider understanding of reconciliation is important because ethnic inequality and economic inequality have often reinforced each other in Sri Lanka’s history.

Academic studies have identified the denial of citizenship rights after Independence as a historic injustice that set back the Malaiyaha community for decades. The challenge now is to ensure that transformation becomes part of the stabilisation and development process itself. Practical first steps are both possible and necessary. The release of civilian lands still under state control, greater devolution of administrative authority, reduction of military involvement in civilian affairs, language equality in public administration and accelerated housing and land ownership programmes in the plantation sector are all measures that can begin immediately without waiting for a final stage of transformation.

The government’s recent commitment that provincial council elections will finally be held this year is therefore significant. These elections have been repeatedly postponed by successive governments. Holding them would not solve the ethnic conflict by itself. But it would signal a willingness to restore democratic institutions and share power in a meaningful way.

Sri Lanka has repeatedly postponed difficult reforms in the hope that a more convenient political moment would eventually arrive. But opportunities are invariably created and fought for instead of being provided as a gift by a benevolent government.

The present moment, shaped by the economic crisis and public demand for accountable government, offers a rare opportunity to move simultaneously towards stability, development and reconciliation. Provincial council elections can be the first meaningful step. But they must not be the last.

by Jehan Perera

Features

Researchers to shape new environmental policy framework

Published

6 hours ago

2026/05/26

Sahan Weerasooriya

Some of the researchers at the meeting

In a significant move aimed at steering Sri Lanka’s environmental governance towards a more science-based and evidence-driven path, the Ministry of Environment has initiated a new collaborative mechanism to integrate leading researchers into national policy formulation and conservation planning.

The initiative was discussed at a high-level meeting chaired by Dr. Dammika Patabendi at the Ministry of Environment on Tuesday, where top environmental scientists, wildlife experts and researchers were invited to contribute towards what officials described as a “strategic transition” in the country’s environmental management framework.

The discussions focused on strengthening the scientific basis of environmental conservation programmes and national policy decisions while creating a more research-friendly environment for academics and field scientists engaged in biodiversity and ecological studies.

Particular attention was paid to long-standing concerns raised by researchers regarding procedural and operational difficulties encountered when conducting studies in collaboration with the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Forest Department.

Minister Patabendi stressed the need for environmental policies to be guided by credible scientific data rather than ad hoc administrative decisions, ministry sources said.

Among the key proposals discussed was the establishment of a streamlined mechanism that would reduce bureaucratic obstacles faced by researchers in obtaining approvals, accessing field sites and sharing scientific findings with state institutions.

The Minister highlighted the importance of building stronger partnerships between policymakers and the scientific community at a time when Sri Lanka is grappling with escalating environmental challenges including deforestation, biodiversity loss, human-elephant conflict, climate-related disasters and ecosystem degradation.

Environmentalists attending the meeting had also highlighted the urgent necessity of incorporating empirical research into national decision-making processes to ensure long-term ecological sustainability and better resource management.

The meeting brought together several of Sri Lanka’s leading environmental researchers and academics including Rohan Pethiyagoda, Saminda Fernando, Sewwandi Jayakody, Samantha Gunasekara, Dinidu Devapura, Himesh Jayasinghe, Manoj Prasanna, Mendis Wickramasinghe and Suranjan Karunarathna.

Director General of Wildlife Conservation Ranjan Marasinghe also participated in the deliberations.

Officials said the proposed framework is expected to pave the way for a more transparent, data-oriented and scientifically credible environmental governance structure capable of addressing emerging conservation challenges more effectively.

The government expects the new mechanism to support the implementation of practical and scientifically robust programmes aimed at safeguarding Sri Lanka’s ecological future while enhancing cooperation between state agencies and the country’s growing community of environmental researchers.

By Ifham Nizam

Features

Back home … for a special occasion

Published

6 hours ago

2026/05/26

Sahan Weerasooriya

Seven Notes: Sri Lankans based in Dubai – with Niluk (second from left)

Niluk Uswaththa, of Seven Notes fame, based in Dubai, surprised many when he and his wife Apeksha, turned up in Colombo, last week … unannounced.

Yes, they had a purpose in their surprise visit … to wish Apeksha’s mum for her birthday, which was on Monday, 18th May, and what a surprise it turned out to be!

In an exclusive chit-chat with The Island, Niluk said that the scene in Dubai is improving and Seven Notes do have work coming their way.

Since the members of Seven Notes are all employed (doing day jobs), they operate only on Saturdays and Sundays.

Niluk: Didn’t come prepared to perform, but obliged
friends in Galle

In fact, to get to Colombo for the birthday surprise (on Monday, 18th May), the band had to skip their 17th May, Sunday gig.

“Although it’s a short vacation, my wife and I are enjoying the setup here,” said Niluk, adding that they spent two days in Galle and that their next destination is Anuradhapura.”

Niluk didn’t come prepared to perform, but he obliged the crowd present, at a friend’s birthday celebrations, in Galle, singing and playing guitar.

They are scheduled to leave for their home, in Dubai, in the first week of June.

Seven Notes is an outfit made up of Sri Lankans and the band has been around for almost nine years.

Niluk came into their scene nearly seven years ago.

“When I went to Dubai, I had offers coming my way but it was Seven Notes that impressed me because of their acoustic style.”

The Dubai’s entertainment scene is showing clear signs of bouncing back and even levelling up in the next few months.

Niluk and Apeksha: Enjoying their short vacation

After a slowdown earlier this year due to regional tensions, shows and festivals are back on the calendar, and organisers say late 2026 could be the busiest concert season in years.

Time Out Dubai says “the 2026 concert calendar is filling up nicely” and “the city is ready to party once again” after some reschedules.

Dubai Summer Surprises in July brings retail activations, comedy nights, and indoor art exhibitions.

Organisers point to a backlog of postponed events that are being rescheduled for late 2026 and early 2027.

Yes, Dubai is calm on the surface but on alert. Life is mostly normal in the city, but there’s a “balancing act” as people watch for escalation.