Features
Shifting responsibility for economic collapse onto the people

By Jehan Perera
Slowly but surely the ruling party is beginning to reassert itself. An indication is the removal of Prof G L Peiris from the chairmanship of the ruling party. In the aftermath of the economic collapse last year he has been one of the few members from the SLPP to have adopted a reformist role. He was also one of the few members of the SLPP to vote for a reformist party member, Dullas Alahapperuma, to become the president of the country at the parliamentary election for the president. However, the majority of members in the SLPP thought otherwise and voted for the opposition candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe who was dependent on the votes of unrepentant members of the ruling party for his victory. It was clear that Dullas Alahapperuma would have had a bigger base of reformist support from within the ruling party to leverage for a change in the system that had led to the collapse of the economy.
The battle cry of the protest movement that swept away former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government from the seats of power in the middle of last year was for a system change. This was a political and moral position that was concretised in the slogans that demanded that the incumbent president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the 225 MPs go home. “Go home Gota” was a slogan that was understood the length and breadth of the country even if many people did not know what was being meant by “system change.” It was an implied call for fresh elections that would give rise to a new government with new members with a people’s mandate. Also at the top of the list of the slogans of that time was the inspiring and hopeful bid to get corruption outlawed in view of the damage it had done, and continues to do, to the Sri Lankan economy which shrank by 9 percent last year, and is expected to shrink by a further 4 percent this year.
Unfortunately, none of the constructive demands of the protest movement for elections and for accountability have come to pass. There have neither been local elections to give any idea of the present mandate of the people nor has there been the slightest practice of accountability or restraint in the practice of corruption. The issue of corruption has come into the open again on the issue of the nitric acid carrying container ship, the X-Press Pearl, which caught fire in Sri Lankan seas causing immense destruction to the environment and livelihood of the fishing community. As reported in the media Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has already made a shocking revelation that he had got hold of details regarding the transfer of US $ 250 million to the foreign account of a Sri Lankan as a bribe to obstruct the legal process related to X-Press Pearl disaster, and directed the police to initiate investigations into it. However, he has failed to name the Sri Lankan involved and will await further details from the probe.
ACCOUNTABILITY ABSENT
The continuing tragedy of the present time, which is articulated by the now suppressed protest movement, is that there is no accountability for those in positions of power. Nor is there transparency. Instead, there is the dark cloud of unknowing. Recently there has been the case of the Rs 5 million that went missing from the Central Bank. There is no transparency at all as to how the money went missing for two weeks and then was found. There is no readily available explanation as to how the money went missing and later found, where and by whom. It should be noted that the tale of the missing money from the Central Bank has come in a context in which the Central Bank has been printing billions of rupees. By way of contrast, the concept of accountability is in existence and practised in Sri Lanka, though not in the government. At private banks those who are dispensing cash as bank tellers have to pay through salary cuts for whatever mistake they make in their work.
The imposing of discipline on those lower in the rungs is also to be seen in the manner in which the government is dealing with the economic crisis. The government’s agreement with the IMF has been at the cost of high taxes and job cuts imposed on the masses of people. The costs of this economic restructuring is falling heavily if not disproportionately on those who are middle class and below. Fixed income earners are particularly affected as they bear a double burden in being taxed at higher levels at a time when the cost of living has soared.
The government’s clarion call for the restructuring and sale of state-owned enterprises is being projected as evidence of the statesmanship and vision of the political leaders. The public service is vastly overstaffed and government managed businesses are making gigantic losses. But it is unfair and immoral to place the blame on the workers who were employed there in large numbers to satisfy the patronage-needs of political leaders. The political debate has been turned on its head. It is not about holding those political leaders accountable for the economic crimes of mismanagement they have perpetrated, but on the workers they hired, that there are too many of them and they are overpaid in relation to the work they do.
Another missing dimension in the current debate about restructuring the economy and getting it out of the rut is the absence of any effort to ensure accountability for past economic mismanagement and corruption, indeed for the looting that took place in the economy. The government has not held those political leaders accountable. Instead, it has shown solicitude for sufferings and pain of mind suffered when their houses were attacked and burned during the height of the protests. Such solicitude can be appreciated, but it needs to be consistent across the board. The different treatment given to politicians as compared to ordinary citizens would rankle within those large numbers of citizens who lost their properties too, during the war, terrorism and riots of the past, but only received meager compensation if at all from successive governments.
REALISABLE DREAM
The government’s unwillingness, perhaps inability, to deal with the issues of corruption goes back to its roots. The government, and president, continue to be beholden to the majority in parliament for their continuation. The tragedy is that this governmental approach will doom Sri Lanka to the shallows, where it has been languishing for at least four decades. The government has been unprepared to form a coalition with the opposition members in parliament to ensure accountability and reform in fact and not only in words and are, therefore, hostage to the ruling party and its leadership. Some government members have started to talk about forming a national government. If this is to be done, it should be based on clear objectives, including pursuing corruption cases, and should be an effort at genuine power sharing. The desire to stay on in power must not take precedence over dealing with corruption.
The economic mismanagement, looting and Ponzi schemes whereby successive governments borrow to repay old loans needs to change if Sri Lanka is to take off into the rapid economic growth its people yearn for. It is not the people who should be blamed but the leaders who are dishonest and corrupt, and who continue to be so. The leading think-tank Verite Research has highlighted that while the government has fulfilled 25 percent of the IMF’s conditions that can be tracked, it has failed to fulfil its commitments to accountability and transparency. It noted that timely progress on the IMF programme has two benefits. First, there are the material benefits that can result from many of the actions. Second, it can improve confidence in Sri Lanka’s governance, which then helps negotiations to restructure the burden of past debt and speed up the path to future economic recovery.
In the 1970s, Sri Lanka was a third world leader in every aspect that counted, ensuring social welfare to its people, non-alignment in foreign policy, and was one of the first countries in the developing South Asian region to liberalise its economy. This is a tradition that Sri Lanka can regain soon if it has proper leadership. It must not be forgotten that when Sri Lanka regained its independence after 450 years of colonial rule and the exploitation that came with that rule, it was one of the economic leaders in the whole of Asia with the potential to become the “Switzerland of the East.” Our hope is that the natural resources that the country has been endowed with, and the natural capacities of its people which are demonstrated in the success they notch up in other countries to which they emigrate, will enable a speedy catch up for all the lost years. But there needs to be honesty, transparency and morality and the desire to take everyone, north and south, rich and poor, on this journey.
Features
First leftist Mayor after NM: SJB, UNP beaten at their own game

What’s in a vote? That which we call a show of hands could still be as concealed as a secret vote. The newly elected Colombo Municipal Council has chosen the NPP’s Vraie Cally Balthazaar as the City’s new Mayor, but on a secret vote and not in an open show of hands. The secret vote route appears to have caused much consternation among the SJB-UNP opposition forces at the Town Hall. The latter openly preferred an open show and are blaming the secret vote for the defeat of their candidate Riza Zarook.
On the face of it, the NPP with 49 of the 117 Councillors has a more legitimate claim to have one of own as Mayor rather than the SJB with 29 Councillors. In what has been described as a “desperate move”, the SJB forged a mayoral united front by fusing its 29 members with the UNP’s 13, the SLPP’s five and the singular member of the People’s Alliance (whoever the PA now is).
The beefed up SJB mayoral front total of 48 was close enough to the NPP’s 49 for claims of legitimacy, and both sides needed the support at least another 11 or 10 from the remaining 20 members to get the required majority of 59 votes. In the secret vote, the NPP’s candidate presumably got 12 of the non-allied votes to get 61 votes in total. The SJB mayoral front got only six for a total 54 votes. Two votes, there’s no certainty as to whose, were rejected.
Would the result have gone the other way if this municipal conclave had decided on an open show instead of papal secrecy? You do not need supernatural powers to determine that. Let alone a clairvoyant like Gota’s Gnanaka! The commonplace supposition would be that a secret vote may have allowed secret transactions to secure support with hidden hands.
But no one is accusing the JVP-NPP of resorting to such time-(dis)honoured tactics perfected for over 75 years by the UNP and later copied by all others, and most vigorously by the Rajapaksas. If I remember right or not mistaken, the Sunday Times Political Editor made the point after the May LG elections that there was no hanky-panky meddling in the elections by the NPP government – unlike (this is my parentheses) all previous governments in all previous elections.
As well, we may turn the question around and ask about the insistence on an open show of hands as against a secret vote. Is it because the SJB is now all for keeping its hands clean and asking others to show their hands of support in the open without receiving undue incentives? OR is it because the SJB and its allies wanted to see in the open which of the NPP councillors, who may have been beneficiaries of earlier incentives, would now betray them and support the NPP candidate?
Put another way, was it a stratagem to ask for a show of hands to see the breach of loyalty in the open in spite of past IOUs? The latter hypothesis has greater credibility because of the blessings given to the SJB alliance by two former presidents representing two fallen political houses.
No matter what happened secretly and how, the eventual victory of Ms. Balthazar as NPP Mayor chalks up a rare non-UNP victory in the history of Colombo Town Hall politics. After independence there have been only two non-UNP Mayors in Colombo. The first came as a progressive breakthrough when NM Perera became Mayor in 1954. The second came as a comical farce in 2006, when Uvais Mohamed Imitiyas, the leader of an independent group put up by the UNP after its botched up list of candidates had been rejected by the Election Commissioner. Ms. Balthazar is also the City’s second female mayor in quick succession after Rosy Senanayake herself an old school UNPer.
In NM’s Footsteps
News commentaries on Ms. Balthazar’s victory have made mention of the fact that she is the first leftist Mayor of Colombo in 70 years. The first and the last leftist Mayor so far has been Dr. NM Perera, the LSSP leader. NM had been a CMC member from July 1948 and became Mayor on 13 August 1954 after the municipal election on 24 July 1954. A New York Times news report called him the world’s first Trotskyite Mayor, a tongue-in-cheek shot that was characteristic of the Cold War era.
An era that the world badly misses now with an unstoppable Netanyahu and TACO (Trump always chickens out) Trump running amok. In this instance, with Middle East burning, Trump has chickened out to the war schemes of Netanyahu.
Back to Colombo of the 1950s, the LSSP fared well in the LG elections of 1954 including Colombo, a number of Urban Councils and many village councils. In Colombo, NM was accompanied by a strong LSSP contingent that included stalwarts like Bernard Soysa Osmund Jayaratne and a well known architect of the era, J. E. Devapura. Some years ago, Stanley Abeynaike recounted the saga of NM’s Mayorship in the Sunday Observer. Last week, Nandana Weerarathne (Nandana Substack) has recalled the old NM story in the current context.
The initiatives that NM spearheaded as Mayor are worthy of emulation even today. The first order of business was ridding Town Hall of bribery and corruption and implementing a purposeful budget. He took on the private omnibus system within Colombo, replacing it by a public trolley-bus service; and started planning a public bus service for the city and suburban travellers in collaboration with the local authorities of Kolonnawa, Wattala, Dehiwela, Mount-Lavinia and Kotte. City cleanup, slum clearance, small housing schemes, upkeep of rental housing neglected by landlords, and transferring ownership of rental housing to tenants after 30 years of occupancy – were among the progressive measures that were rapidly rolled out during NM’s methodical mayorship.
But all those initiatives of NM riled up the landlords and the private bus owners, and through them the entire UNP government of Prime Minister Kotelawala. Sir John and his cabal were not going to let NM to be the Mayor of Colombo’s even as the country was heading to the general election in 1956. A conspiracy was hatched, and a resolution was passed at an emergency UNP meeting at Sri Kotha, the UNP headquarters, “to remove the Colombo Mayor, Dr. NM Perera.” Even the courts got in on the act to facilitate a resolution at Council against NM as Mayor.
When the resolution to remove NM as Mayor finally came to the floor, Bernard Soysa, Osmund Jayaratne and JE Devapura took turns speaking for hours on end against the resolution. They were hoping to run the clock until the Supreme Court ruling came. But to no avail, and the resolution was passed on October 1st, 1955 by a majority of two votes. One of them was the Communist Party’s Kotahena Member Anthony Marcellus who was brought over to the UNP to vote against NM. Orchestrating the moves was R. Premadasa (father of the current SJB leader) who was brought from outside to oversee matters inside, replacing then Deputy Mayor T. Rudra, who was obliged to resign. All of that in time for the April 1956 election that the UNP lost anyway.
Even the 2006 election of Uvais Mohamed Imitiyas, a political nondescript, as mayor, was the result of the backfiring of a UNP plan to prevent Vasudeva Nanayakkara, another LSSPer, from becoming Mayor. The UNP even got the better of Milinda Moragoda, one time Wickremesinghe confidant, when he chose to make a run for the Mayorship with the support of the Rajapaksas in 2011. UNP fielded its own candidate, AJM Muzammil, who defeated Moragoda and stayed on as Mayor until Rosie Senanayake succeeded him as the next, and now likely the last, UNP Mayor.
So, one can imagine the consternation of Ranil Wickremesinghe in seeing even the last bastion of the UNP’s power legacy being taken away by the upstart NPP. After 1977, through constitutional chicanery and electoral subterfuge the UNP established its supremacy at all levels of government and in all elections. After Chandrika Kumaratunga’s spectacular victories in 1994, the UNP’s electoral superstructure has been steadily dismantled and the only elected body that has survived this debacle is the Colombo Municipality. Until now, that is.
And all of this has been on Ranil Wickremesinghe’s watch. He has been quintessentially a Colombo politician, albeit with an elitist base like JR Jayewardene, unlike the likes of Pieter Keuneman, Bernard Soysa or R. Premadasa who reached out to a broader cross-section of people in the City. Losing Colombo would be the bitterest pill to swallow.
If you are inclined to feel sorry for Mr. Wickremesinghe, save yourself some space to feel good about the future of the City and even the country. Leaving Colombo in the hands of an opportunistically cobbled up SJB-UNP-SLPP alliance would have been both an insult and an injury. The NPP deserved to have one from its ranks as Mayor and it has beaten the UNP in its own game to seal its victory. But having won to govern, will the NPP govern to win – again? That is the question.
by Rajan Philips ✍️
Features
Criminalise war and work tirelessly for peace: Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

Soon to be 100-years ( July 10 th 1925) the two times former Prime Minister of Malaysia’s advice to the world is to “Criminalize War” and work tirelessly for peace.
Q: What is the secret to your healthy happy life?
A: People ask me that question all the time and I say I think its just my good luck. If I have suffered from some kind of fatal disease like cancer, of course life would be different.
I have had heart attacks, and both times I had open heart surgery, but nowadays they don’t open your heart. They use stents. I survived and I recovered and I was able to function. After that I am more careful with what I eat. I keep my weight steady. I do not increase my weight.
In this world, food is the problem. On the one hand you have people who are obese and on the other hand, we have a world that is starving. So, I avoid being obese and eat only very little every day.
Q: What is your advice to the younger generation?
A: My advice is to be active. Active means not only physically active. The brain is an amazing muscle. You need to use it every single day. If you see weight lifters, they have big muscles because they do exercise, You must not become sedentary. Brain must be constantly exercised.
Q: Now that you have retired, what is your day like?
A: I want to take it easy, but most of the time, I come to work almost daily. Usually, people try to retire at 55 or 56. But they must not do that. I keep my body and mind active all the time. I still read, write and do whatever is needed of me.
Q: About the world and with all that is going on around us, what would your advice be to all nations, specially to the nations that are at war?
A: When I stepped down from being Prime Minister, I started a movement to ‘Criminalize War” to make war a crime. There was some support, it took a long time. I believe that any conflict should be resolved. Not through killing each other. You should resolve conflicts through peaceful means like negotiations. That is what we practice here. We are a multinational country, normally there would be many conflicts, but we do not have war in Malaysia. We sit down and talk.
Q: If you had one more opportunity to be Prime Minister of Malaysia, what would you do differently this time?
A: When I stepped down after 22 years, there was still a lot of things to be done. These 22 years were a time of very high tension that came from developed countries. So, at that time, I had to know how things should be done and when things should be done. When I stepped down, unfortunately, my successors were focused on other things. In fact, making money became their priority, so the focus on the country, diminished.
Q: What is the one thing you would like to see happen in your country or in the world as a whole?
A: There are developed countries and there are under developed countries. We want to be a developed country. Developed countries have many assets. For example, economically our people have a fairly good life, our people are involved in activities that contribute to the wellbeing of each other and to other nations. Countries need to help each other, for example in the sciences. There are many areas of research that still need to be done. I would like to see developed countries, reach out to developing countries and form healthy alliances to make each other prosperous.
I have lived a fruitful life. I am happy and I wish to see all nations prosperous and live in peace.
Anusha Rayen, Freenlance Journalist (Formerly ‘The Island Newspaper’ staff member & Parliament reporter) sits for an exclusive interview with former PM of Malaysia Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in Puthrajaya.
Features
Price of Netanyahu’s Iran Offensive

That was brutal, and predicated on years of fabricated deceit. But that is how power operates. Netanyahu is not acting in isolation; he was ushered into this calamity with calculated endorsement from the West. For both Iran and Israel, this is a zero-sum confrontation—a tragic entanglement where ancient antagonisms, contemporary geopolitics, and enduring colonial residues violently intersect. What is most intellectually arresting is the glaring paradox Western powers routinely embrace. When Netanyahu launches a premeditated and unlawful assault on Iran, it is euphemistically labelled as a measure of self-defence. Yet when Vladimir Putin deploys forces into Ukraine, the West decries it as an unprovoked invasion. This hypocrisy in moral reasoning illustrates the incoherence of Western ethical frameworks—marked by selective outrage, selective jurisprudence, and selective memory.
Netanyahu is actively courting American bombardment of Tehran, even venturing so far as to suggest the types of ordnance most suitable for maximum devastation. Trump, meanwhile, hesitates—not over Iran’s fate, but because the ensuing ramifications will inevitably encircle him. This cynical arithmetic typifies the geopolitical stage on which empires perform their cruelties. A week has now passed since Netanyahu’s incursion into Iran—a deliberate campaign tacitly sanctioned by the United States and its constellation of affluent allies, whose modern prosperity is inseparable from centuries of extraction and systemic plunder. War, whether desirable or not, remains the central mechanism by which empires assert dominion, redraw territories, and dismantle resistance. Israel’s open defiance of international law—manifest in its missile barrage on Iranian soil—lays bare an unsettling truth: if global powers truly revered international legal norms, Netanyahu’s actions would face unequivocal denunciation. Instead, one could argue—chillingly—that he affirms history’s most ominous prophecies.
Western media, complicit in sanitising this act of aggression, frames it as an “unprecedented” strike—yet again resorting to euphemism to mask illegality. This was not an improvisational operation; it was the culmination of extensive clandestine preparation by Netanyahu and his ultranationalist Orthodox coalition. Israel’s intelligence apparatus has, over decades, embedded itself within the architecture of Iranian society, executing key figures and orchestrating strategic assassinations. The latest Friday strikes were not merely military engagements—they constituted a coordinated political decapitation, targeting senior officials central to the Iranian state.
Iranian society today endures compounded crises. Their tenacity and national pride remain steadfast, yet they are economically suffocated by Western sanctions, which have induced runaway inflation and scarcity. From first-hand experience in Tehran, Iranians are not consumed by a siege mentality; rather, they display a cautious hospitality that, once trust is earned, transforms into deep generosity—qualities starkly misrepresented in Western discourse. In contrast, Israelis are socialised into a perpetual state of existential fear. “Security” is not merely policy—it is a psychological infrastructure, permeating every aspect of public and private life. Israel’s economy thrives not only through sanctioned trade but through its robust arms industry and cyber-warfare enterprises, often exported under the guise of national expertise. This divergence in societal conditioning is critical: it reflects distinct historical wounds and geopolitical compulsions.
To grasp Israel’s war on Iran, one must situate it within the long arc of Western imperial entrenchment in West Asia. This history is punctuated by covert operations, artificial borders, and a strategy of managed chaos. The 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran—toppling the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and reinstating the autocratic Shah—is emblematic of this trajectory. For decades, Western powers suppressed indigenous sovereignty while installing compliant strongmen. The 1979 Islamic Revolution was not merely theological upheaval; it was a radical assertion of national agency forged in the crucible of sustained foreign domination. In the revolution’s wake, Iranian society was reconstituted through a deep-rooted collectivism and assertive nationalism that continues to shape its resistance against external coercion.
Viewed through this prism, Netanyahu’s tenure may be remembered as one of the most corrosive in Israel’s history. By fusing religious chauvinism with militaristic expansionism, he has eviscerated Israel’s democratic ethos, transforming “security” into a tool of territorial expropriation and systemic Palestinian disenfranchisement. His escalation against Iran is not merely a tactical error; it is an incitement to regional disintegration. Framed as a crusade for “unconditional surrender,” his belligerence risks igniting a broader conflagration whose consequences will inevitably recoil upon Israel itself. Netanyahu, then, appears less as a strategist than as a provocateur, recklessly agitating the region’s deepest historical and sectarian fissures.
According to Haaretz, an independent Israeli media outlet operating despite a severely censored and often propagandistic Israeli media environment, several prominent progressive Jewish groups were notably absent from the so-called “joint unity statement” backing Israel’s strikes on Iran. These groups contend that while Iran should not acquire nuclear weapons, military action will at best delay the threat and more likely strengthen hardliners. They argue that diplomacy, not bombs, has proven effective in preventing nuclear proliferation—revealing significant divisions within the Jewish community over Netanyahu’s war.
Meanwhile, a report in the Financial Times captures the civil dimension of this confrontation. Despite sustained bombardment, millions of Iranians remain in Tehran. “Trump and Netanyahu say ‘evacuate’ as if they care about our health. How can a city of 10 million evacuate? My husband and I are not going to pave the ground for them. Let them kill us,” Shirin, a private sector employee told the newspaper. Their refusal to flee is not naïveté—it is a visceral affirmation of identity and resistance. The Iranian public consciousness, hardened by decades of war, sanctions, and subterfuge, manifests a collective defiance often misread in the West. The state’s nationalist discourse resonates beyond clerical authority; it channels a cultural memory of resistance against imperial intrusion.
Moreover, the disproportionate risk to civilians is staggering. Israeli operations ostensibly targeting senior military personnel inevitably endanger entire urban populations, as these individuals live and operate within densely populated civilian zones. The echoes of Israel’s operations in Lebanon—where missile strikes against Hezbollah figures claimed high civilian casualties—are unmistakable. The Iranian Health Ministry’s figure of nearly 1,500 casualties reveals the raw human cost beneath the rhetoric of strategic necessity.
This episode also exposes the profound hypocrisy embedded in Western narratives on nuclear proliferation. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly found no conclusive evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon systematically. Yet, Western powers wield this unverified threat as a pretext for military aggression. The contradictory statements from US officials—from intelligence directors denying Iran’s weaponisation efforts to presidents asserting Tehran is “very close” to the bomb—reflect a politicisation of intelligence designed to justify interventionism.
History has shown the futility of liberal interventionist fantasies: that democracy can be air-dropped or imposed through market restructuring. The Arab Spring, once heralded as a democratic revival, instead expedited the collapse of fragile states and exacerbated regional instability. The supposed liberal order in West Asia has devolved into a transactional, militarised regime wherein peace is manufactured, not cultivated.
Netanyahu’s war on Iran is not an anomaly—it is the terminal result of accumulated imperial failures, ideological rigidity, and historical amnesia. It confirms a grim axiom: when utopias collapse, it is always the powerless who bleed. His offensive, cloaked in the pieties of national security, belongs to a longer, darker chronicle—one whose conclusion will define the fate of West Asia and the very contours of justice in our century.
by Nilantha Ilangamuwa ✍️
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