Editorial

A breath of fresh air

Published

1 year ago

2024/09/29

The result of the September 21 presidential election promises, more than anything ever before, the ‘system change’ demanded in 2002 by the Aragalaya as well as many other segments of the Sri Lanka polity outside the agitation. Commentators were correctly unanimous that none of the front runners, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa and then President Ranil Wickremesinghe would clear the 50 percent plus one vote margin eliminating a preference vote count for the first time in the country’s presidential election history.

But very few predicted that the eventual winner would be as clearly ahead of the two challengers as AKD was. Neither Premadasa nor Wickremesinghe cleared the 40 percent barrier, while the winner chalked up 42.31%. Wickremesinghe finished a very poor third with just 17.27% of the vote against Premadasa’s 32.76%. Namal Rajapaksa trailed far behind managing 02.57% percent raising doubts of whether the deeply divided SLPP, with Mahinda Rajapaksa showing clear signs of physical infirmity, Basil Rajapaksa gone to his new homeland and Gotabaya sulking in his tent, would remain relevant at the forthcoming parliamentary election. Likely contenders to enter and re-enter parliament positioned themselves for the next round of battle at the now completed presidential contest and the campaign leading to it. Many of them are likely to come a cropper..

There will be no debate that the new president and his NPP/JVP team ran an election campaign unparalleled for its efficiency and organizational brilliance enabling a new player from outside the elite to enter what was often described as a thattu maru field where the UNP and SLFP and their various offshoots took turns running the country. True, the JVP too participated in what it called the “probationary” government of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in 2001 and held three ministries (AKD was the minister of agriculture) there. It also helped Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike and her leftist allies (LSSP and CP) to sweep out in 1970 the Dudley Senanayake government elected in 1965.

But a few months later in April 1971 it launched an armed insurrection to topple the government for the first time in the country’s contemporary history. Popularly dubbed a “handbomb revolution,” rebels using homemade bombs and shotguns commandeered countrywide from farmers and other weapon holders, the outfit styled the Che Guevara movement was able to overrun a few police stations. The government was compelled to enlist military support from neighbouring countries like India and Pakistan as well as the West although no foreign troops were directly involved in suppressing the insurgency.

JVP founder Rohana Wijeweera and the other leaders of the 1971 insurrection were jailed under a Criminal Justice Commission mechanism but were freed by the J.R. Jayewardene regime elected by a landslide in 1977. Asked at that time what would happen if the JVP returned to arms, Jayewardene famously said “let them then first look for a place to hide.” The party thereafter took the parliamentary route towards capturing power when Wijeweera ran for president against Jayewardene and Hector Kobbekaduwa of the SLFP. He succeeded in polling 4.19% of the total vote cast, higher than AKD’s 3.16% at the November 2019 presidential election. This number alone, plus the fact that the NPP/JVP polled under four percent of the vote at the August 2020 parliamentary election, winning just three seats, is evidence enough of the surge in that party’s popularity within a short span of four years.

As readers well know, the JVP’s second armed adventure in 1988-89 was much bloodier than the 1971 insurrection both in terms of rebel action and state retaliation. Thousands of lives were lost on both sides with the Sri Lanka state fighting a civil war in the north taking on, with no holds barred, a bloody insurrection in south. That was a time when a chit delivered by a boy on bicycle could close factories and offices. Wijeweera was executed and much of the party’s leadership and cadre including many innocents liquidated. Dissanayake and his team succeeded to a great extent in persuading the electorate that its bloody history is a thing of the past by broadening the political formation to the NPP/JVP, led no doubt by the JVP but including other liberal organizations, to broaden its remit.

Following AKD’s victory, the NPP/JVP has made the right noises and many who once feared them now look forward to good governance and an end to the corruption in which the greens, blues and the purple satakas consorted. Although many promises have been made by parties that have governed the country, corruption has reigned supreme. The president made a brilliant choice in Dr. Harini Amarasuriya for prime minister. She has made many friends for the party during her short stint in the legislature as a National List MP. Whether she would remain in that position after the parliamentary election is an open question. There has been speculation that whoever wins the most preference votes on the NPP list at the forthcoming election would get the job.

Fridays news that the VFS visa scheme is out and Mobitel’s Electronic Travel Authorization reinstated from midnight has been loudly applauded. Increased fertilizer subsidies for farmers and cheaper fuel for fishermen are likely to win votes. A Westminster-style first-past-the-post election would have surely won a landslide for the NPP. But the forthcoming contest will be on proportional representation and less favourable. AKD will, no doubt, try to inspire those who didn’t vote on Sept. 21 to exercise their franchise. There will be many new faces in the NPP candidate list while the established parties would, most likely, field too many tired old faces reluctant to bow out of the scene.

All News Advertisement

Editorial

Anger wells up as people queue up

Published

14 hours ago

2026/02/22

Thilina Walpola

A shortage of cooking gas has affected several areas, where there are long lines of people near gas sales points. These scenes evoke one’s dreadful memories of winding queues for essential commodities in 2022. The two situations however do not bear comparison in that the country had no forex for petroleum imports in 2022 whereas there is no such problem at present; the gas shortage is mainly due to supply mismanagement.

The LP gas shortage has gladdened the hearts of the Opposition politicians immensely. They have got hold of something to beat the government with. They are making the most of the issue and urging the government to ensure an uninterrupted gas supply. Having failed to secure enough popular support to win elections, they are apparently deriving some perverse pleasure from the people’s predicament. In 2022, the then Opposition, including the JVP, used public resentment, which stemmed from shortages of essentials and long queues, to fuel their political projects and oust President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The JVP went on to garner favour with the irate public and capture state power.

The JVP-NPP government is taking great pains to deny the obvious. On Friday, the ruling party frontbenchers went ballistic in Parliament, berating the Opposition for making what they termed a false claim that there was a gas shortage. They are far removed from reality. If they care to look around, they will see long lines of people near gas sales points in some areas. They had better come to terms with reality and sort out the gas shortage, which shows signs of worsening.

The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) has sought to make light of the gas shortage. It has been making political statements in defence of the government, instead of taking action to safeguard the interests of consumers. It has urged the public not to stock up on cooking gas. It has also claimed that the state-owned gas company, Litro, has had to meet a shortfall in the gas supply caused by the failure of Laugfs to cater to its consumers. The CAA needs to be told that there is no way the public can hoard cooking gas. They cannot store more LP gas than the cylinders in their possession can hold. It is next to impossible to purchase new cylinders to hoard gas. Litro also does not supply gas to Laugfs consumers using yellow cylinders, and therefore it does not have to release more gas into the market to meet a Laugfs gas supply shortfall.

The government insists that Litro has enough gas stocks. If so, why doesn’t it order Litro to increase the supply and end the gas shortage forthwith? The Opposition has said the gas shortage has come about as the government awarded the contract for supplying LP gas to a new company. One may recall that speaking in Parliament in December 2025, Opposition MP Chamara Sampath Dassanayake warned of a possible gas shortage in February. He said the government in its wisdom had contracted a new gas supplier who was not capable of ensuring a reliable supply. Former Minister Champika Ranawaka has said the government had to change the supplier in keeping with the conditions the US laid down for reducing the so-called Trump tariffs on Sri Lankan exports. The government has chosen to remain silent on these claims. An explanation is called for. If it is true that the new supplier is not equal to the task of ensuring a steady supply of LP gas, the government will have its work cut out to eliminate gas shortages and queues and prevent public anger from welling up.

People’s aversion to shortages of essentials and queues knows no bounds. It was one of the reasons for the crushing defeat the SLFP-led United Front government suffered in 1977. It also became the undoing of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency in 2022. Aragalaya, which developed into a massive protest campaign, started off as a series of agitations against fuel and milk food shortages, in urban areas. People did not have to take to the streets in 2022; they were already there waiting in winding queues. The situation is obviously not so bad at present, but anything is possible in politics. It is a big mistake for a government to take public resentment for granted.

Editorial

Reinventing the wheel

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/21

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 21st February, 2026

The JVP-NPP government has appointed another Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to study the electoral system under which the Provincial Council (PC) elections are to be conducted and submit proposals and recommendations to Parliament. It is bound to take a month of Sundays to complete that task. In fact, that is exactly what it is intended to do; the government wants the PC elections delayed further as it is not ready for an electoral contest.

Speaker Dr. Jagath Wickramaratne announced in the House that the PSC had been constituted under the chairmanship of Minister Vijitha Herath. Other members are Muneer Mulaffer, Attorney-at-Law Sunil Watagala, Arun Hemachandra, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, Mano Ganesan, Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi, Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam, Samanmalee Gunasinghe, Darmapriya Wijesinghe, Chandana Sooriyaarachchi and Nizam Kariapper. The PSC is scheduled to commence deliberations shortly. Rasamanickam has already warned that the government is all out to postpone the PC polls further.

The JVP-NPP government, which came to power promising a new political culture, has demonstrated that it does not scruple to stoop to any level to safeguard its political interests. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, the JVP/NPP promised to hold the PC elections expeditiously if voted into power. The NPP election manifesto, A Thriving Nation: A beautiful Life, makes a solemn pledge to hold the PC polls within one year of the formation of an NPP government. “Provincial councils and local government elections, which are currently postponed indefinitely, will be held within a year to provide an opportunity for the people to join the governance” (p. 127). It is said that between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.

There is no argument about the need for electoral reforms. The Proportional Representation (PR) system has shortcomings, which need to be rectified. The new Mixed Proportional system, under which the local government (LG) elections are held, is seriously flawed. It has led to a two-fold increase in the number of local councillors. There are now more than 8,000 LG members. This increase may have served the interests of politicians and their parties but certainly not those of the public. Why should the people be made to pay through the nose to maintain more than 8,000 councillors when the LG bodies can manage with only half that number as they did in the past.

If the PC elections are also held under the Mixed Proportional system, the number of provincial councillors will double. Currently, about 450 PC members are elected. There is no gainsaying that the Mixed Proportional system has to be changed before being used at the provincial level. The implementation of the new electoral system requires the delimitation of electoral boundaries. Much has been discussed about the flaws in this system and the remedies to be adopted. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

What the government should do now is to amend the PC Elections Act and hold the long overdue PC elections under the PR system soon while the PSC proceedings are continuing. Future PC elections can be held under a new electoral system. The Opposition has been clamouring for the PC polls, and therefore an amendment to the PC laws can be ratified unanimously. After the PCs are duly elected, the PSC on electoral reforms can take as long as it needs to reinvent the wheel.

Editorial

PC polls in limbo amidst govt.’s mumbo jumbo

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/20

Thilina Walpola

Friday 20th February, 2026

The JVP-NPP government finds itself in an unenviable position over the Provincial Council (PC) polls, which have been in abeyance for nearly a decade. In the late 1980s, the JVP plunged the country into a bloodbath in a bid to prevent the establishment of the PCs, which it said would endanger the territorial integrity of the country. Today, it has a two-thirds majority in Parliament and its leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake is the Executive President. It is therefore well positioned to carry out its promise to do away with the PCs. After all, some election monitors have called upon it either to hold the delayed PC polls or to consider abolishing the PCs. It has chosen to do neither. Its leaders who vowed to liberate this country from India, which created the PC system, are seen pressing the flesh with the Indian leaders.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has accused the JVP-NPP government of trying to use a parliamentary select committee (PSC) to delay the PC polls further. TNA MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam has reportedly opposed a government plan to bring the PCs within the remit of a new PSC. He has pointed out that a PSC on the PCs already exists, and the duplication of the PSC process will only lead to confusion and create conditions for the PC polls to be further delayed.

MP Rasamanickam’s fear is not unfounded. It is obvious that the government is not ready for an election. Otherwise, it would have amended the PC Elections Act, enabling the Election Commission to hold the PC polls under the Proportional Representation system soon. All signs are that it will do everything in its power to avoid an electoral contest this year. Its fear of elections has given the lie to its claim that its approval rating has improved.

The TNA is not alone in urging the government to hold long-delayed PC elections. The SJB, the SLPP, the SLFP and the UNP are also demanding that the PC polls be held immediately. All these political parties facilitated the passage of an extremely bad Bill to amend the PC Elections Act in 2017, thereby helping the UNP-led Yahapalana government postpone the PC polls . They ought to tender an apology for that blatantly undemocratic act.

It may be recalled that the TNA, the SLFP, the JVP and the Joint Opposition, consisting of the SLFP dissidents who subsequently formed the SLPP were prominent among the parties that enabled the ratification of the aforesaid shockingly awful Christmas tree Bill loaded with more committee-stage amendments than its original text. The SJB stalwarts were in the UNP in 2017 and voted for that bad Bill, which was not consistent with Article 78 (3) of the Constitution: “Any amendment proposed to a Bill in Parliament shall not deviate from the merits and principles of such Bill.”

Meanwhile, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva has denied reports that the government is under pressure from India to hold the PC polls. He visited India recently and met Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. However, one may recall that in April 2025, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself publicly urged Sri Lanka to hold the delayed PC polls. At the UNHRC session in Geneva in September 2025, an Indian delegation repeated Modi’s call. India has done so under pressure from Tamil Nadu.

Statements made by Tilvin, who is widely seen as the eminence grise of the ruling JVP-NPP coalition, are generally considered authoritative. If the NPP government is not under Indian pressure to ensure that the PCs will have elected representatives soon, the question is whether the Modi government has taken the Tamil Nadu politicians for a ride.

If the NPP government is not afraid of facing the public, it can amend the current PC election laws and hold the PC polls without taking cover behind the delimitation process, which is likely to drag on indefinitely. Mere rhetoric won’t suffice.