Editorial

The upcoming election

Published

5 years ago

2020/08/2

This is the last issue of our newspaper before the country goes to the polls on Aug. 5 to elect the 13th Parliament since 1947. Talk of ‘floating’ votes notwithstanding, most people have by now decided how they are going to vote or if they are going to vote at all. If various pre-poll analyses are correct, the out-turn at this election is likely to be lower than usual. Voter turnout at elections in this country is relatively high, much more so than even in most developed countries. As many as 83.72 percent of the electorate voted at last November’s presidential election, higher than the 77.66% at the preceding parliamentary election. But many observers expect that there will be much fewer people voting this time round, partly because of ongoing health issues and the lowkey campaigning it compelled. Also, given the presidential election result, some would regard the conclusion as foregone and not bother to vote.

We can all be thankful that violence this time round has been less than previously in recent years. That, unfortunately, is not due to fewer thugs and undesirables running for election or more efficient law enforcement. The ban, or rather the tighter controls, on the display of election propaganda material served the salutary purpose of both sparing the environment and eliminating the ‘war’ between rival poster-pasters as has been common at previous elections. Different figures have been published of how much the contenders have spent on their campaigns. However accurate or not they may be, there is no doubt that big bucks have been splurged as always. But our law as it stands does not require campaign contributions or identities of donors to be disclosed. This is a lacuna that needs addressing urgently. Many large contributors, inevitably big businessmen, regard contributions to political coffers as investments and expect a payback. Some of them also back both sides for insurance, but the public are not privy to who they are and how much they put into different war chests.

Undoubtedly most electors are not happy about the quality of the vast majority of those they send to parliament. But they have no option but to choose a political party or independent group as the case may be, and then cast three preference votes for individual candidates whose names are on the ballot paper. Despite widely prevalent public opinion, political parties have done precious little or nothing to run slates that include people of good repute and integrity and give the voter the opportunity of sending better MPs to parliament. The fact that the vast majority of members of the last parliament are seeking re-election, under the different party banners, speaks for itself. Only a handful of them have performed well and deserve re-election from whichever party they are running from. There are well known rogues and undesirables among the candidates although they might have not been convicted in any court of law. Party leaders cannot cling to the belief that all persons are deemed innocent until they are proved guilty and anoint rank bad people on their lists. Some of those running this time, in the glare of live television coverage, displayed rowdy behaviour in the parliament chamber itself not so long ago.

Successive elections in the recent past have become more and more expensive to the taxpayer who must pay the cost. He might rightly wonder about the cost-benefit ratio of such expenditure with presidential elections following local elections and parliamentary elections, with provincial council elections on the way. Special arrangements that Covid 90 has compelled would add billions to the final tab. But whether all this is going to be worth it is an open question. This election was twice postponed due to the health emergency confronting not only this country but also the whole world. It is well known that the incumbent government was anxious to have the election done and dusted while the UNP would have liked a further delay. This was in the hope that the two factions of the party would then have more space to overcome their differences and present a united front against the SLPP. But that was not to be. The Elections Commission declared that it would abide by the health guidelines laid by the competent authorities. These have been flagrantly violated by most of the contestants who paid only lip service to rules. Not even feeble enforcement efforts were attempted by the police who have long shown a marked reluctance to tangle with political VIPs.

Older readers will have nostalgic memories of the past when parliamentary elections saw high caliber people, many from the old left parties, elected to the legislature. Names that come to mind include N.M. Perera, Colvin. R. de Silva, Pieter Keuneman, S.A. Wickremasinghe and more recently Sarath Muttetuwegama. The right wing sent giants like D.S. Senanayake and his son, Dudley, SWRD Bandaranaike, JR Jayewardene and many more to parliament. There were no pensions and tax free car permits then. The allowances paid were modest at best even in those pre-inflation days. But the frontbenches on both sides of the old House of Representatives included greats who provided debates of a quality that would have been a pride of any legislature anywhere in the world. The rewards of sitting in parliament then were modest if at all and we did not have the professional politicians of today who have amassed crooked fortunes and got off Scott free.

Criticism abounds on the executive presidential system of J.R. Jayewardene that continues despite the promises of most of his successors who pledged to abolish it. They welshed on that one with one even doing away with the two-term limit via a constitutional amendment enabled by a two thirds majority granted not by the electors but by defectors. Hopefully the voters will do what is best for themselves and our country despite the limited choices come August 5. We will then, as the saying goes, get the government we deserve. That is a price of the democracy that we have long cherished.

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Editorial

Selective transparency

Published

22 hours ago

2025/12/27

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 27th December, 2025

The NPP government has released a cordial diplomatic letter from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, and gained a great deal of publicity for it as part of a propaganda campaign to boost Dissanayake’s image. Such moves are not uncommon in politics, especially in the developing world, where the heads of powerful states are deified and their visits, invitations and letters are flaunted as achievements of the leaders of smaller nations. However, the release of PM Modi’s letter to President Dissanayake is counterproductive, for it makes one wonder why the government has not made public the MoUs it has signed with India?

PM Modi’s Sri Lanka visit in April 2025 saw the signing of seven MoUs (or pacts as claimed in some quarters) between New Delhi and Colombo. Prominent among them are the MoUs/pacts on the implementation of HVDC (High-Voltage Direct Current) Interconnection for import/export of power, cooperation among the governments of India, Sri Lanka, and the United Arab Emirates on developing Trincomalee as an energy hub, and defence cooperation between India and Sri Lanka.

The NPP government has violated one of the fundamental tenets of good governance––transparency; there has been no transparency about the aforesaid MoUs or pacts, especially the one on defence cooperation. They cannot be disclosed without India’s consent, the government has said. This is a very lame excuse. The JVP/NPP seems to have a very low opinion of the intelligence of the public, who made its meteoric rise to power.

When the JVP/NPP was in opposition, it would flay the previous governments for signing vital MoUs and pacts without transparency. But it has kept even Parliament in the dark about the MoUs/pacts in question.

Ironically, the JVP, which resorted to mindless violence in a bid to scuttle the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord in 1987, has sought to justify the inking of an MoU/pact on defence cooperation between Sri Lanka and India and keeping it under wraps, about three and a half decades later. The signing of that particular defence MoU/pact marked the JVP’s biggest-ever Machiavellian U-turn. How would the JVP have reacted if a previous government had entered into MoUs with India and kept them secret? It opposed the proposed Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) between Sri Lanka and India tooth and nail, didn’t it?

Whenever one sees the aforesaid letter doing the rounds in the digital space, one remembers the MoUs/pacts shrouded in secrecy, which have exposed the pusillanimity of the NPP government, whose leaders cannot so much as disclose their contents without India’s consent.

Editorial

Desperate political sandbagging

Published

2 days ago

2025/12/26

Thilina Walpola

Friday 26th December, 2025

There is nothing more predictable than surprise in politics. After securing a two-thirds majority in Parliament last year and emerging victorious in most local councils, this year, the JVP-led NPP may have thought that it was plain sailing. But the government now has many unforeseen, seemingly intractable issues to contend with almost on all fronts. The disaster-stricken economy is expected to slow down, with relief and rebuilding costs escalating, and the deadline for the resumption of debt repayment approaching. Vehicle imports are bound to decrease, causing a sharp drop in the government’s tax revenue. The rupee is depreciating fast. As if these were not enough, the government is experiencing serious problems on the political front.

The defeat of the NPP’s budget in the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), which the JVP/NPP seized control of through extensive horse trading, could not have come at a worse time for the government. The same fate has befallen many other NPP-controlled local councils. Most of all, the NPP has suffered a string of defeats in the cooperative society elections countrywide during the last several months.

Desperate times are said to call for desperate measures. Cyclone Ditwah and the attendant extreme weather events that badly damaged roads, tank bunds and river banks prompted repair teams to resort to sandbag revetment. But there have been many instances where sandbag facings collapsed, unable to withstand the intensity of floods and slope failures. The government politicians who boasted of having carried out swift restoration work have been left red-faced; they have failed to assess the severity of the problems they are trying to solve.

The NPP government has resorted to a method similar to sandbag revetment in a desperate bid to consolidate its control over some local councils which cannot secure the passage of their budgets for want of majorities. Its members have gone to the extent of setting the clock forward in such institutions, meeting in advance of the regular start time and declaring their budgets passed before the arrival of the Opposition councillors. What the NPP did in the Horana Urban Council the other day is a case in point, the Opposition says.

The NPP is accused of having inflated the number of votes for its Galle MC budget amidst a howl of protests from the Opposition and declared victory. The Opposition councillors prevented the council secretary from leaving the auditorium, put the budget to a fresh vote and defeated it. The Opposition has threatened legal action against the Mayors/Chairpersons and the state officials for violating the law. The government is likely to employ a similar method to have the CMC budget passed when it is put to a vote again next week. The JVP has no sense of shame, just like all other political parties that have been in power.

All self-righteous politicians, given to moral grandstanding, lay bare their true faces when their interests are threatened, and they face the prospect of losing their hold on power. The JVP/NPP is now without any right to be critical of its rivals who did not scruple to undermine democratic principles and traditions to retain power.

Gaining control of hung local councils is one thing, but running them to the satisfaction of their members and the public is quite another. The non-majority councils that the Opposition parties have gained control of could face the same fate as the CMC. This situation has come about because the country is without patriotic leaders. Ideally, the political parties that obtained pluralities in the hung councils should have been allowed to control those institutions, and they should have adopted a conciliatory approach and sought their political rivals’ cooperation to serve the public.

The shameful manner in which the NPP acted during the Galle MC budget vote is not unprecedented. One may recall that in January 2024, the SLPP-UNP government did something similar to secure the passage of its despicable Online Safety Bill. The then Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena stooped so low as to make use of a brawl in the House and declare the Bill passed. Interestingly, the SLPP and the UNP are among those who are raking the NPP over the coals for undermining democratic principles and traditions. So much for the self-proclaimed messiahs and their critics.

Editorial

Christmas spirit, relief and pledges

Published

3 days ago

2025/12/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

Thursday 25th December, 2025

Christmas has dawned while Sri Lanka is reeling from the cumulative impact of multiple disasters which snuffed out hundreds of lives and destroyed many homes and livelihoods. It is a time of hope. Its ethos, which emphasises hope, compassion and giving, could not be more relevant in these difficult times when the task of looking after a large number of disaster victims and helping rebuild their shattered lives has become a top national priority.

Santa came here the other day, as it were. There was no magical flight of a sleigh pulled by reindeer across the night sky. Instead, a jet landed at the BIA, and out stepped Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. He unveiled a generous disaster relief and reconstruction package from India and flew back. This noble act of giving exemplifies the spirit of Christmas as much as good neighbourliness.

The best way the Sri Lankan rulers can show appreciation for generous assistance from India and other nations is to uphold accountability, rationalise disaster relief and ensure that it is distributed in a transparent manner. There are disturbing reports about political interference with the disbursement of funds among disaster victims. A high-level probe must be conducted into these allegations.

Christmas is also the season of giving and forgiving. The irony of Minister Jaishankar meeting President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is also the leader of the JVP, may not have been lost on keen political observers. If the JVP had acted wisely, heeding religious tenets, and pursued its political goals without resorting to violence, in the late 1980s, tens of thousands of precious lives and state assets worth billions of rupees could have been spared. India has forgiven the JVP, which it even helped gain international legitimacy and shore up its electoral chances in the run-up to last year’s presidential election. India has also helped Sri Lanka manage its worst-ever economic crisis and the impact of natural disasters. The people of Sri Lanka have also forgiven the JVP, despite its past violence, as evident from its impressive electoral victories last year. Sadly, the JVP is not willing to forgive its political enemies. Its General Secretary Tilvin Silva himself has said so. It ought to soften its stand.

All political leaders in this country usually issue well-written Christmas messages, extolling the core Christian virtues, such as giving, forgiving, compassion and peace-making. If only they lived up to the ideals they claim to cherish, at least while the country is struggling to recover from a series of natural disasters. Unfortunately, their post-disaster political battles are intensifying apace, and one wonders whether their focus is actually on helping disaster victims or furthering their political interests. They are not willing to sink their political differences for the sake of the disaster victims crying out for relief.

Meanwhile, the government leaders ought to go beyond issuing Christmas messages if they are to prove that they actually care about the believers in Jesus Christ. They ought to fulfil their pledge to serve justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday terror attacks (2019), which claimed more than 275 lives.

About seven years have elapsed since that tragedy which could have been prevented if the then government had heeded intelligence warnings, and the country has had four Presidents and three governments. But the promises made by the political leaders to bring the masterminds behind the Easter Sunday carnage to justice have gone unfulfilled. Those who are desperately seeking justice pinned their hopes on the current leaders who vowed to trace and prosecute the terror masterminds expeditiously.

The present-day leaders, too, have chosen to remain silent on their promise at issue; they are impervious to calls for justice, just like their predecessors. Let fulfilling their pledge to serve justice for the Easter Sunday terror victims be one of their Christmas resolutions.