Editorial

Super mandate and sobering reality

Published

2 years ago

2024/11/18

Monday 18th November, 2024

Following their stunning victory in last week’s parliamentary election, the JVP/NPP leaders must still be pinching themselves to make sure that they are not dreaming. Their mammoth majority is sure to go down in Sri Lanka’s history. However, the bigger the majority, the greater a government’s responsibility and the higher the possibility of the public expecting miracles and becoming frustrated. Above all, the Actonian truism that absolute power corrupts absolutely has stood the test of time. Giving politicians, especially untested ones, steamroller majorities could be just as much a recipe for disaster as keeping teenagers, alcohol and car keys together.

It was somewhat reassuring that JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva lost no time in appearing on television on Friday and promising that the NPP government would handle its super majority carefully and responsibly. However, one expected that assurance to come from the General Secretary (GS) of the NPP, and not the GS of the JVP, which says it is only part of the NPP. Nevertheless, Silva’s pledge will go a long way towards allaying doubts and suspicions in the people’s minds as regards steamroller majorities. One can only hope that the JVP/NPP will honour its word.

The NPP government will have to knuckle down to work forthwith and make good on its promises. It faces a steep learning curve. The new government is full of novices, and most ministers to be appointed will have no experience whatsoever with governance, and there could arise a situation where the political authority becomes heavily dependent on the highly unpopular bureaucracy, as never before. Officialdom is as much responsible as previous governments for Sri Lanka’s current predicament and the resultant public resentment, which the JVP/NPP tapped to propel itself to power.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a political greenhorn, became overdependent on public officials like P. B. Jayasundera, and the so-called professionals, such as doctors and university dons, failed pathetically. Behind every mega racket in the state sector, there is a rogue public official. The fake immunoglobulin fraud in the Health Ministry is a case in point. The fact that the members of the public service, which has become synonymous with inefficiency, callousness and corruption, threw their weight behind the NPP in the last two elections does not mean they are ready to mend their ways, work diligently, enhance their productivity and cooperate with the new government to achieve its goals for the sake of the country. There’s the rub.

The new government will find itself in the same bailout straitjacket as its predecessor, and the IMF, which is at the beck and call of the western bloc, is no respecter of popular mandates in the developing countries. So, whether the NPP government will be able to do things differently on the economic front remains to be seen. Unless it toes the western line, it will have screws being tightened by the international lending institutions.

The National People’s Power government ought to bear in mind that ‘People Power’ entered the political lexicon following a popular uprising in the Philippines in 1986 against dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was backed by the US, which is now pontificating to Sri Lanka on the virtues of good governance. Marcos, whose regime was notorious for corruption and oppression, was ousted for more or less the same reasons as the Rajapaksa government.

But, in 2022, Filipinos elected Bongbong, son of Marcos, as their President. Ironically, his only qualification was that he was the scion of the Marcos family! Similarly, the forces the JVP/NPP boasts of having vanquished, are likely to make a comeback if the self-proclaimed liberators fail to carry out their promises. There have already emerged small pockets of resistance to the NPP’s clean-up campaign; Chamara Sampath (Badulla) and Rohitha Abeygunawardena (Kalutara) have retained their seats! These pockets could act like Covid clusters with the passage of time.

The NPP takes pride in having won handsomely in the North and the East as well in the recently-concluded general election—and justifiably so. That was a singular achievement. But would the people of the North and the East have been able to exercise their democratic rights, especially franchise, much less vote for political parties of their choice, if the LTTE had been around? The JVP did not support the country’s war against the LTTE. Most of all, whether the NPP will be able to retain its popularity in the North and the East will depend on how it handles contentious issues such as devolution and the UNHRC resolutions against Sri Lanka.

Riding a massive wave of anti-politics, the JVP/NPP succeeded in creating a kind of political Morton’s fork—a dilemma in which both choices are equally unpleasant—for the public by lumping its rivals into two groups, the Rajapaksa camp and others represented by the UNP, the SJB, etc.; it vilified both groups as corrupt, inefficient and worthless, while presenting itself as the only saviour. For this purpose, it had the public believe that the country had gained absolutely nothing during successive governments since Independence (1948). If so, how come an office aide’s son from Tambuttegama received free education and graduated from a state university with a science degree, and went on to become the President of Sri Lanka? It is thanks to successive governments that democracy has survived two JVP uprisings and a protracted war for the people to elect governments. The vast majority of professionals in the JVP/NPP, have also benefited from free education, free healthcare, etc.

True, most of the previous governments were characterised by corruption and abuse of power, and they contributed to the present economic crisis, but that does not mean that the country has not achieved anything since Independence, as evident from numerous development projects, impressive health indicators and high literacy rate. Interestingly, didn’t the JVP opt for honeymoons with the governments it keeps condemning, from 1970 to 2019? It was part of the SLFP-led UPFA government, which was in power from 2004 to 2010.

What made the NPP’s impressive electoral victories possible was the unstinting support of the ‘voters of passage’, who shift their political loyalties, based on changing circumstances, their own interests and the prevailing political climate. There is reason to believe that most of those who helped raise the NPP’s votes from a meagre 3% to a whopping 61% and its parliamentary seats from a mere three to a stunning 159 within just four years are the ones who voted overwhelmingly for Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the 2019 presidential race and for the SLPP in the 2020 general election and subsequently resorted to punitive voting against the Rajapaksas owing to contrition. Many of them are also known for virtue signaling. One of the biggest challenges before the NPP government will be to retain their support in future elections, especially the local government and provincial council polls slated for 2025.

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Editorial

Cramped cells, fettered rights

Published

19 hours ago

2026/06/17

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wednesday 17th June, 2026

Some occupants of key positions in the public service unashamedly display their chameleon-like ability to adapt to changing political circumstances and please new leaders. They do not scruple to trade their professional dignity for expediency. So, it is not surprising that some police officers have chosen to be at the beck and call of powerful politicians, and the police go out of their way to further the interests of the powers that be. Their servility has stood in the way of efforts to depoliticise the police through constitutional safeguards.

Unsurprisingly, the police have resorted to legal action against some Opposition politicians who took up the cudgels for the rights of former State Intelligence Service Director Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Suresh Sallay in CID custody. If the CID had acted impartially and respected Sallay’s rights as a detainee, the need for protests would not have arisen. It was protests that prompted the CID to bite the bullet and rush Sallay to hospital. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has reportedly expressed concern about the conditions of the detention cells at the CID headquarters.

Contrary to government claims, there have been no calls for Sallay’s release or an end to the ongoing police investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Everyone is of the view that the probe must go on and justice must be done to the carnage victims. Protests have been against the alleged ill-treatment of Sallay at the CID headquarters. Criticism of the suppression of the rights of detainees must not be misconstrued as efforts to undermine the judiciary.

Police action against the critics of the CID smacks of a sinister move to suppress democratic dissent. The incumbent government is apparently emulating the previous dispensations that resorted to draconian measures to silence dissent to consolidate their hold on power.

In a democracy, sovereignty resides in the people, who are the ultimate political authority, and they must not be denied their legitimate right to oppose the subjugation of the legal process to the political interests of the government in power. It is antithetical to democracy and amounts to an assault on the people’s freedom of expression for criticism of politically driven investigations and the abuse of suspects under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to be framed as obstructions of the police or contempt of court.

The PTA allows the Defence Minister to order the detention of suspects arrested by police investigators to further the interests of his or her political party on some pretext or another. However, the abuse of the PTA is not of recent origin. There is hardly any law that has not been abused under successive governments, and the self-proclaimed campaigners for democracy and human rights, were abusers themselves, while in power.

The present-day UNP leaders who have condemned the alleged ill-treatment of Sallay fully endorsed numerous such violations, especially the arrest and prolonged detention of Vijaya Kumaratunga in a dark cell in the early 1980s. The JVP assassinated Kumaratunga a few years later.

The JVP vehemently opposed the PTA, politically driven investigations, etc., as it bore the brunt of repressive practices facilitated by the PTA. But the JVP-led NPP government has not only chosen to use the PTA to suppress dissent but also reached a new low; it has brought two of its active party members out of retirement and appointed them as the CID Director and Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security. Worse, it intimidates those who dare criticise the undemocratic actions of these officers and campaign for the rights of suspects in detention.

Now that the appalling conditions of the CID’s detention cells have come to light, pressure must be brought to bear on the government to take remedial action for the benefit of all suspects. Most of all, police officers loyal to the ruling party must not be allowed to subject detainees to cruel treatment in a bid to break their will and obtain confessions.

Editorial

A deal that pours oil on troubled waters

Published

2 days ago

2026/06/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

Tuesday 16th June, 2026

The world must have breathed a sigh of relief yesterday following the announcement that the US and Iran had agreed to sign a peace deal soon and begin negotiations in earnest to resolve contentious issues. The peace plan has renewed hope that no more lives will be lost due to military strikes in West Asia; precious assets, especially oil infrastructure, in that part of the world will be safe, and disruptions to global oil supplies will be over.

Interestingly, as US President Donald Trump turned 80, global oil prices which had shot up to extremely high levels, owing to his war on Iran, dropped to about USD 80 a barrel, the lowest since the eruption of the war in February. Upon the announcement of the US-Iran peace deal, WTI, the US oil benchmark, decreased to USD 80 a barrel, and the global oil benchmark, Brent crude, which was about USD 70 a barrel before the conflict and peaked at about USD 120 during the war, dropped to USD 83 a barrel. Share markets surged in Asia. These are very positive signs.

The US-Iran peace deal and the resultant oil price drops could not have come at a better time for developing nations, especially Sri Lanka, which is struggling to stabilise its rupee and shore up its forex reserves.

However, a return of global oil prices to the pre-conflict level of USD 70 a barrel may not be possible in the short term, given some factors, such as the lost production capacity in West Asia, strategic oil reserve replenishment and higher risk premium. The situation may improve sooner than expected if OPEC, the US, Canada, Brazil, etc., care to increase oil production and help stabilise the world energy market, thereby strengthening the global economy, which has shown signs of severe decline due the West Asian conflict.

US President Donald Trump pretends that he has done Iran a big favour by agreeing to a peace deal. However, Trump has apparently made a virtue of necessity. It was difficult for him to go on fighting, particularly in view of the passage of a crucial War Powers bill. Besides, US Vice President J. D. Vance, in an interview with Fox News, has said, inter alia, that Americans were facing economic hardships due to the Iran war; he has expressed hope that energy prices will start coming down shortly much to their relief. This shows that the Trump administration was also badly in need of a peace deal.

The US-Iran peace deal to be signed has been described in some quarters as a birthday gift for Trump. It must have gladdened his heart beyond measure, for his approval rating has plummeted due to his handling of the economy and the Iran war, and his Grand Old Party is expected to perform poorly at the midterm elections in November. One may recall that General Sherman, after completing his March to the Sea, famously “presented” the city of Savannah, the Confederacy’s most important port, as a Christmas gift to President Lincoln, in December 1864. Trump may have expected his military commanders to do likewise and present something like Iran’s Kharg Island to him as a birthday gift, but his plans went awry owing to Iran’s fierce resistance, with Tehran effectively shifting the war to the economic front by using the Hormuz Strait as a strategic lever. So, Trump apparently had to settle for a peace deal as a birthday gift, so to speak.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is obviously not well-disposed towards the peace deal to be inked. He was dependent on the Iran war for political survival. His opponents are closing ranks, and he has court cases to contend with. So, if he carries out attacks on Hezbollah targets again, as speculated in international defence circles, Iran may be compelled to respond, maybe by closing the Hormuz Strait again. In the world of cloak-and-dagger geopolitics, anything is possible. It is up to Trump to ensure that his friend behaves.

World powers have welcomed the peace deal to be signed and praised the US, Iran and Pakistan, which made it possible. They themselves have been reeling from the knock-on economic effects of the West Asian conflict, and it will be in their best interest to do everything in their power to ensure that the peace deal will reach fruition and the Iran war will be a thing of the past.

Editorial

El Niño at the gate: Are we ready?

Published

3 days ago

2026/06/15

Thilina Walpola

Monday 15th June, 2026

Sri Lanka apparently has more than its fair share of extreme weather events, ranging from floods to droughts and now the disruptive effects of a mega climate anomaly. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that due to unusually warm ocean waters in the tropical Pacific, El Niño conditions are developing fast, and they are expected to drive more extreme temperature and rainfall patterns in the coming months. Sri Lanka is among the countries that are expected to suffer the severest impact of this phenomenon.

Some climate experts have suggested that Sri Lanka may not experience a severe El Niño impact. However, it is prudent to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

The WMO has stressed that the time for informed decision-making, planning and preparedness is now. “The science is clear: El Niño is arriving on our doorstep in the coming months with 90% certainty. The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said. The world has experienced El Niño events for many years and therefore knows what it is like to face them. However, the question is whether such warnings will jolt Sri Lanka into taking urgent action to mitigate the impact of El Niño, which will deal a double whammy, with floods and droughts affecting different parts of the country simultaneously.

Sri Lanka has earned notoriety for ignoring and failing to respond to crises and disasters swiftly. One may recall that in December 2004, nobody sensed danger on seeing the eerie drawback of the sea minutes before the landfall of the Boxing Day tsunami. Thousands of lives were lost as a result. There were quite a few warnings of the impending Easter Sunday terror attacks in 2019, but nobody cared to take preventive action. Many experts warned of a crippling economic crisis in 2022, but no action was taken to prevent it. So, fear being expressed in some quarters that nothing serious is likely to be done by way of disaster risk reduction in view of El Niño is not unfounded. Last year, Cyclone Ditwah caught the incumbent government unprepared and overwhelmed the state disaster response system initially. The impact of El Niño is expected to be far severer as it will last for months.

The first casualty of El Niño is agriculture dependent on monsoon rainfall. Most countries affected by El Niño-driven droughts and floods face crop losses in multiple seasons and the resultant prolonged food shortages have the potential to lead to political upheavals. A possible increase in food imports is bound to worsen Sri Lanka’s foreign currency woes. Perhaps, many countries will be compelled to restrict agricultural exports. There’s the rub. Hence, agricultural experts have called for a climate-smart home gardening initiative to meet such an eventuality.

The impact of El Niño usually spreads to other sectors, such as power and energy. The use of substandard coal has caused a sharp decline in power generation at Norochcholai. If reservoir levels recede steeply, decreasing the country’s hydro power capacity drastically, it will not be possible to meet the Norochcholai generation shortfall by burning diesel, etc., due to the cost factor and forex constraints. Shortages of power, energy and water take their toll on the industrial sector and impede economic growth. Beyond economic losses, El Niño entails broader social costs such as poverty, disease outbreaks and disruptions to education.

The JVP-NPP government would have the public believe that it has a well-thought-out plan to mitigate the severe impact of El Niño by focusing on water conservation, climate-resilient agriculture, food and energy security while strengthening disaster preparedness. The Food Policy and Security Committee, appointed by the government, has reportedly discussed ways and means of mitigating the impact of El Niño with particular focus on agriculture, water storage and drinking water supplies. The proof of the pudding is said to be in the eating. One can only hope that the government will succeed in this endeavour and all other stakeholders will put their shoulders to the wheel.