Monday 10th November, 2025

Underworld killings have resumed, after a brief lull, giving the lie to the NPP politicians’ claim that the recent arrests of some criminals, such as Kehelbaddara Padme, have dealt a paralysing blow to the underworld. Such arrests are no doubt essential and welcome, but voids they create in the underworld do not last long, for there are many dangerous criminals vying for supremacy.

Amidst media reports of a series of successful anti-drug raids in this country, disturbing news has emanated from India. The Indian Intelligence agencies are concerned that the Dawood Ibrahim syndicate (also known as D-syndicate), in a bid to expand its drug business through South India, is tapping into the LTTE’s network. IANS has reported that the powerful syndicate is in touch with the LTTE operatives and sympathisers, both in Sri Lanka and India, to help further the drug business.

For the LTTE, which was defeated by the Sri Lankan forces, this may serve as a perfect opportunity, the IANS report has said, noting that a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has suggested that the LTTE is attempting to make a comeback. Some of its operatives who managed to escape are trying to withdraw money from some foreign banks, according to the NIA, and the Indian intelligence agencies suspect that the funds are meant to revive the LTTE.

There is no need to panic, but a matter that is so serious as to have caused concern to the Indian intelligence agencies should not be taken lightly. One may recall that the Easter Sunday carnage (2019) could have been prevented if the UNP-led Yahapalana government, which was backed by the JVP to the hilt, had heeded repeated warnings of terrorist activities in the Eastern Province and, above all, the actionable intelligence about the impending terror strikes.

The D-syndicate’s efforts to forge links with the LTTE rump must not be taken in isolation; they must be viewed against the backdrop of attempts that have reportedly been made to revive the LTTE since 2009. On 02 September 2021, we pointed out in an editorial comment, that a probe into three Sri Lankan boats carrying drugs and arms, intercepted in Indian waters, had shed light on an attempt to revive the LTTE. The Indian media revealed that an NIA investigation into the seizure of a haul of heroin, five AK-47 assault rifles, 1,000 rounds of ammunition from a boat intercepted off the coast of Vizhinjam, Kerala, had fuelled speculation that an international drug trafficking and gun-running outfit was attempting to revive the LTTE. The probe teams believed that the five assault rifles seized from the boat were for the LTTE sleeper cells. The main suspect with LTTE links, Suresh Rajan, arrested in India, was found to have links to international drug smugglers. He was an associate of Makandure Madush, a notorious Sri Lankan drug dealer, who died allegedly in a shootout while being in police custody. The Tamil Nadu intelligence officers confirmed that Rajan and Madush had worked together.

The Sri Lankan law enforcement authorities, engaged in anti-narcotics operations, and the current government leaders must not lose sight of possible links between southern drug dealers and LTTE activists. It behoves them to shed their political blinkers and intensify their focus on areas other than Tangalle, the hometown of the Rajapaksa family. True, a main drug smuggling route runs via the southern seas, and that must be blocked, but due to the intensification of naval and police operations in the South, there is the possibility of drug dealers bringing in narcotics through other parts of the country.

It may be recalled that a few months after Prabhakaran’s death in 2009, the Indian media quoted some Indian experts as having said that there was ‘a tug-of-war in the drug world to grab Prabhakaran’s multi-million-dollar drug cartel’, and there was the possibility of terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba stepping in to fill the vacuum. Swaraj Puri, former Director General of India’s Narcotics Control Board said the LTTE’s drug smuggling activities had been stalled, after its military defeat in Sri Lanka, but other drug lords would vie for the market the LTTE had created. Is it that the situation the Indian experts warned of is playing out now?

The incumbent Sri Lankan government is struggling to neutralise the underworld, and therefore whether it will be able to face a formidable terrorist threat to national security is the question. Political stability and national security are prerequisites for economic recovery and investment promotion. The UNHRC has launched a campaign to press war charges against the Sri Lankan military; some foreign governments have imposed sanctions on several war-time military commanders who were instrumental in defeating the LTTE, and legal action has been instituted in this country against some former military commanders, based on claims made by ex-LTTE members. These hostile measures are believed to have taken their toll on the morale of the armed forces members, who may baulk at going all out to defeat terrorism in the event of the scourge manifesting itself again—absit omen!

The JVP-led NPP government has apparently taken a leaf out of its immediate predecessor’s book, where election postponements are concerned. It has said the much-delayed Provincial Council (PC) elections will be held only after the completion of the delimitation process, which is a prerequisite for the implementation of the mixed proportional system.

The Election Commission (EC) is reported to have said the completion of the delimitation process will take about one year. The NPP is losing cooperative society elections, which are considered political windsocks, and therefore the government will try every trick in the book to delay the PC polls as long as possible.

The postponement of PC elections was widely considered a political issue, and it was thought that the most effective way to sort it out was to crank up pressure on the government, but former EC Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya has shed light on a legal dimension of the problem.

He has said the Governors are keeping the PCs under their control in violation of a Supreme Court ruling that the PCs be governed by elected councillors. He revealed this at a conference held on Wednesday. He is au fait with election laws and judicial decisions pertaining to them. Those who are genuinely desirous of having the PC polls held without further delay can now explore the possibility of seeking a judicial intervention.

During the previous government, the JVP-led NPP raked the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe over the coals for postponing the Local Government polls in defiance of an SC order. It joined the other Opposition parties in demanding that the SLPP-UNP government comply with the SC order that funds be allocated for the mini polls. Going by the former EC Chief’s contention, the incumbent NPP government and its leaders have done something similar; they have been keeping the PCs under the Governors illegally.

Presenting Budget 2026 yesterday, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced a government decision to appoint an expert committee to draft a code of conduct for the judicial service. Before venturing to do so, shouldn’t the government comply with the SC decision the former EC Chief has referred to and hold the PC polls soon?

The Opposition never misses an opportunity to tear into the NPP government—even unfairly at times. Strangely, it has been silent on the postponement of the PC polls. Is the Opposition also wary of facing an election any time soon?

Sri Lankan politicians are known to have king-sized egos, and they behave like emperors when ensconced in power, so to speak. An opportunity has presented itself for them to do something an extremely powerful emperor once did—cutting the Gordian Knot.

Former Polls Chief Deshapriya, who is known for his eloquence, said at the aforesaid conference, that Parliament could enable the EC to hold the PC polls under the Proportional Representation (PR) system. He said that task would require only a simple majority in Parliament. The NPP has a two-thirds majority in Parliament and bringing in a new law or amending the existing ones for that purpose should be child’s play for it. Deshapriya said the time had come for the Gordian Knot to be untied.

It will take a long time to untangle the complex knot, and what should be done is for someone to cut it, the way Alexander the Great did. We are not short of political leaders who wrap themselves in the flag, declaring that they are ready to die for democracy and the people’s franchise. So, it is up to one of them to cut the Gordian Knot by taking the initiative to make Parliament remove the legal obstacles to the conduct of the PC elections under the PR system.

No political party in the current Parliament will be able to oppose such a move, for all of them helped the Yahapalana government amend the PC Elections Amendment Act to postpone the PC polls indefinitely. They are therefore responsible for the knotty politico-legal issue their despicable action has given rise to. It is incumbent upon them to make a concerted effort to clean up the mess that they themselves have created.

Saturday 8th November, 2025

What was mainly reflected in Budget 2026, presented by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, yesterday, in Parliament, was his government’s commitment to keeping the IMF bailout on track. The President spelt out how his government intended to boost investment and carry out reforms essential for economic growth. Salary/wage hikes have been proposed but the government would surely have gone out of its way to do much more for the state and estate workers if not for the economic straitjacket the IMF has put it in. It has had to act with some restraint.

President Dissanayake has set for his government an ambitious goal of achieving a 7% economic growth, in the next few years, driven by investment and productivity-led expansion. This is no doubt a tall order, given the growth forecasts.

The World Bank has projected that the economy will grow by 4.6% in the current year and slow to 3.5% in 2026. It is hoped that the goal set by the government will be attainable; the country will have to resume foreign debt repayment in earnest in 2028, and that task requires a high growth rate, which should be above 6%.

The government’s debt sustainability targets include increasing state revenue as a percentage of GDP while reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio significantly. The government has proposed to increase state revenue to 15.3% of GDP and lower the debt-to-GDP ratio to 87% in 2030.

The projected budget deficit of 5.2% can be considered something positive that signals fiscal consolidation, as the government has claimed. But one of the main criticisms of Budget 2026 is that out of 62 expenditure proposals, which account for a mere 2.4% of government spending, according to the Opposition, only 13 are directly related to development.

The Opposition demanded to know yesterday how the country could achieve its development goals without a substantial increase in capital expenditure. State expenditure has to be kept low to reduce the budget deficit, but that must not be done at the expense of investment in projects that support investment and growth.

The government’s wisdom of planning to recruit as many as 75,000 workers into the state sector stands questioned. The state service is already bursting at the seams, with about one public official per 15 citizens. It has earned notoriety for inefficiency, waste and corruption, and the government’s recruitment policy will only worsen an already bad situation. The NPP has failed to be different from its predecessors which resorted to public sector recruitment for political reasons.

There has been a sensible suggestion that instead of expanding the public service, the government seriously consider reskilling and reassigning excess workers in state institutions as a solution to shortages of human resources elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the IMF programme requires Sri Lanka to restructure quite a few loss-making state enterprises while implementing land and labour reforms, and adjusting tax policies to promote investment. These are politically sensitive issues that the government needs like a hole in the head, with the Provincial Council elections expected late next year. The government is also required to increase electricity tariff, but a Public Utilities Commission intervention has stood in the way of a power tariff hike. However, it may get what it wants, early next year, when the electricity tariffs will be up for revision. It has also proposed to reduce the annual turnover threshold for VAT registration from Rs. 60 million to Rs. 36 million. A positive feature of the revenue enhancing strategy is the proposed streamlining of tax administration.

Overall, the economic outlook may be positive, but it will be far from plain sailing for the NPP government, which is tasked with pushing a major reform package uphill amidst protests and resistance, while fulfilling the aspirations of the public. 2026 is going to be a challenging year for both the government and the public.