Friday 20th June, 2025

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) paid a glowing tribute to the outgoing Secretary to the Finance Ministry, Mahinda Siriwardena, on Wednesday. He ensured that Siriwardena would end his crucial innings in the Treasury on a high note, and commended the latter for having helped steer the country’s battered economy to safety. Siriwardena praised President Dissanayake for having provided political leadership for the ongoing economic recovery efforts.

The felicitation of Siriwardena was replete with irony, which may not have been lost on keen political observers. The highest accolades for his Treasury stint, which could be likened to a high-wire act performed without a safety net, came from the leader of the very political party that bayed for his blood, as it were, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presidency.

The JVP would tear Siriwardena to shreds for drastic economic recovery measures that sent the public reeling. It also threatened to throw him behind bars under an NPP government. Thankfully, Siriwardena did not crack under political pressure and hostile propaganda. Following last year’s regime change, the sobering reality had a mellowing effect on the JVP/NPP, which had to come to terms with it. President Dissanayake deserves praise for having retained several key state officials who had played a pivotal role in helping the country navigate its worst-ever economic crisis during the previous dispensation. Thus, he ensured an uninterrupted continuation of the country’s economic recovery programme backed by the IMF.

Siriwardena, or any other efficient state official, for that matter, would not have succeeded if not for unwavering political leadership President Ranil Wickremesinghe provided for the country’s economic recovery efforts. To give credit where it is due, Wickremesinghe had the courage to make a host of unpopular decisions to save the economy; he had to increase taxes and tariffs while curtailing state expenditure amidst protests. It is doubtful whether any other leader would have dared grasp the nettle the way he did on the economic front.

But for those stringent measures, it would not have been possible to break the back of the economic crisis, and the IMF programme would have collapsed, plunging the country into chaos or even anarchy. President Wickremesinghe would have been able to win last year’s presidential election if not for the many wrongs he committed on the political front. He unflinchingly shielded crooks and succumbed to the arrogance of power. He did not heed democratic dissent and went so far as to make an election disappear in 2023.

He claimed that he had to prioritise the basic needs of the public over elections, and therefore funds could not be allocated for the local government polls, which were to be held in that year. Siriwardena, who carried out President Wickremesinghe’s controversial order to that effect, refusing to allocate funds for elections, was lucky that the Supreme Court dismissed two contempt of court cases against him. They were widely thought to be touch-and-go cases. Interestingly, one of the two contempt of court applications was filed by President Dissanayake’s trusted lieutenant, Vijitha Herath, and the other by the SJB. Obviously, Herath did so with Dissanayake’s blessings.

Perhaps, being the Treasury chief in Sri Lanka is one of the toughest jobs in the world, like that of the Columbia River Bar Pilots. Whoever holds that position incurs the wrath of ruling party MPs with an enormous appetite for state funds so much so that one of the Treasury Chiefs came to be dubbed an economic hitman. That job has become doubly difficult during the current economic crisis. Siriwardena must have spent many sleepless nights. His high-stress job may have accelerated his biological age, causing it to overcome his chronological age.

It is fervently hoped that in filling the vacancy created by Siriwardena’s exit, in the Treasury, President Dissanayake will not repeat the mistake he made by trying to appoint someone without adequate experience and competence as the Auditor General at the expense of a highly capable senior official of integrity in the Auditor General’s Department. He must ensure that Siriwardena’s successor will be an experienced, competent official of integrity.

Thursday 19th June, 2025

The government and the Opposition behaved yesterday––for once. They agreed to have a parliamentary debate on the Middle East conflict and its impact on Sri Lanka yesterday evening itself. If only they had reached consensus on that matter the previous day itself instead of clashing. All Opposition MPs, save a few, staged a walkout, on Tuesday, berating the Speaker. The Opposition and the NPP should learn to act with restraint and address crucial issues in a conciliatory manner. It was unfortunate that the debate had to be postponed yesterday as SJB MP Ajith Perera, who called for it, was not present in the Chamber. So much for the Opposition’s commitment to its legislative duties and functions!

Sri Lanka ought to support the ongoing global campaign for the de-escalation of the Middle East conflict vis-à-vis sinister attempts by some western powers to aggravate the situation and further their geostrategic interests. US President Donald Trump made himself out to be a dove during his first term, but the hawk in him has now come out. Instead of working towards preventing the ongoing conflict from spinning out of control, Washington is busy fuelling the flames. The US unequivocally justified Israel’s retaliation in the wake of unprovoked Hamas attacks in October 2023 and has since sent military aid to Tel Aviv generously, but now it is asking Iran to stop retaliatory attacks which Israel provoked with a series of air strikes on Iranian interests. Speculation is rife that the US may even go beyond Trump’s rhetoric and threats and join Israel in attacking Iran purportedly to scuttle Iran’s nuclear programme the way the US and its western allies invaded Iraq ‘to destroy the weapons of mass destruction’, which were never found.

Only a few world leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron have called upon both Israel and Iran to stop trading missiles and drones. That should be the position the civilized world must adopt. The two powerful nations at war must be pressured to agree to a truce forthwith for the sake of their own citizens and global peace. The world already has enough and more serious issues to contend with and therefore needs another war like a hole in the head.

Meanwhile, the NPP government should initiate a broader discussion on the Middle East issue, given the economic costs of a further escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict the developing countries such as Sri Lanka will have to bear. Global oil price hikes are bound to lead to a significant increase in Sri Lanka’s import bill. Iran is an export destination for Sri Lanka’s tea, and Israel has provided jobs for thousands of Sri Lankans. So, Sri Lanka’s economy is likely to suffer a triple whammy. Besides a severe strain on the country’s scarce foreign exchange reserves, the possibility of a fuel shortage cannot also be ruled out. It is imperative that the government get the country’s import priorities right, and manage the forex reserves frugally.

The government has informed Parliament that there are sufficient fuel stocks. This is certainly good news, but it always pays to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. One can only hope that the escalation of the Middle East conflict and speculation of shortages will not trigger panic buying of fuel. Prudence demands that the government seriously consider dusting off the QR-based fuel rationing tool, which stood the country in good stead in 2022. Such emergency levers must be on standby. Fuel shortages have the potential to bring down governments, as we saw in 2022.

When fuel pumps run dry and queues extend near filling stations, people’s love for a government flies out of the window. One can ask former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had a narrow escape from a mob including his former supporters thanks to his Olympic-standard sprint, what it is like to be in such a situation.

Meanwhile, the SJB-led Opposition ought to take its legislative responsibilities seriously, and ensure that its members are present in the House, especially when important issues are taken up for debate. The government and the Opposition must stop behaving like Iran and Israel in Parliament and concentrate on preparing the country to face the worst-case scenario.

Wednesday 18th June, 2025

The Opposition MPs, save a few, walked out of Parliament yesterday, claiming that the Speaker violated their constitutional right to have themselves heard in the House. The protesting MPs alleged that the Chair allowed the Chief Government Whip to speak freely while denying the Chief Opposition Whip and the Opposition Leader an opportunity to express their views on matters of national importance.

Leader of the House and Minister Bimal Rathnayake lashed out at some Opposition MPs for their misconduct, which, he said, was second only to that of the UPFA MPs who went berserk in Parliament in 2018, hurling chilli powder at their rivals. The Opposition has its share of troublemakers who do not act with decorum, but two wrongs do not make a right; silencing dissent is as deplorable as misbehaviour in the House.

Much has been written about the abuse of power and blatant violations of parliamentary privileges of the Opposition members under previous governments. In 2018, some of the Opposition notables who are currently pontificating about the virtues of democracy smashed up furniture in Parliament and even tried to assault the Speaker. The culprits should have been arrested and prosecuted for unleashing violence and destroying public property, a non-bailable offence. The media and civil society organisations campaigned hard to have those violent elements brought to justice, but in vain. There have been numerous other such instances where previous governments violated the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the Opposition MPs, who were even assaulted in full view of the media and schoolchildren in the public gallery. It is only natural that public anger welled up for decades and found expression in the 2022 uprising or Aragalaya, which paved the way for the JVP-led NPP’s meteoric rise to power last year.

People voted overwhelmingly for the NPP because they were desperate for a system transformation. But the NPP government is acting as though it considered its supermajority a divine right to do as it pleases in Parliament and elsewhere, and, above all, make its political opponents bend to its will.

Political power has on the wielders thereof the same effect as mind-controlling parasites on their hosts, if allowed to go to their heads. It is like a borrowed garment. It is the politicians blind to this reality who rule the country with the arrogance of an emperor, indulge in malpractices and suppress democratic dissent. They should learn from what has befallen former leaders and the likes of Mervyn Silva, who considered himself a warrior king reincarnate and flouted the law with wild abandon and total immunity while in power, knowing that he was shielded by his political masters. Now, he finds himself in the exalted company of other lawbreakers behind bars. There are lessons that politicians can learn from the predicament of former Ministers Keheliya Rambukwella, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Nalin Fernando and S. M. Ranjith, and the bureaucrats behind bars for having cut corrupt deals together with politicians. A future government will surely order thorough probes into alleged transgressions under the incumbent administration, such as the questionable green-channelling of 323 red-flagged containers. The state officials who are allegedly queering the pitch for the Opposition parties in contests to elect the heads of the hung local councils will also have to face the consequences of their actions.

The NPP’s argument that the Opposition plays the victim in Parliament to gain public sympathy, and disrupts sittings to gain media attention is not untenable. The government is right in asking the Opposition Leader and the Chief Opposition Whip to keep their unruly MPs on a tight leash. Similarly, it ought to respect the constitutional rights and parliamentary privileges of the Opposition MPs and be different from the previous governments that were intoxicated. If it wants to gain public trust and arrest the erosion of its vote bank, it should be the change it promised to usher in.