Features

US Election Down to the Wire, Sri Lanka has Turned the Page

Published

2 years ago

2024/10/27

Thilina Walpola

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

by Rajan Philips

In about ten days, on November 5, the US will have its quadrennial presidential election along with its biennial House and Senate elections. The presidential election is literally down to the wire, and the two candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, are fighting it out at the margins in the so called seven swing states. At the time of writing, it is a total toss up and there is no certainty about the outcome.

In a presidential election year, the American voters mark their ballots to elect their president for four years, a third of their 100 senators for six years, and all 435 members of the House of Representatives for two years. The elections to the Senate and the House are called the ‘down ballot races’, below the main presidential runoff.

Traditionally, voters used to vote the same way (either Democrat or Republican) up and down the ballot. Not anymore. And the candidates up and down the ballot are also vigorously minding their own races without too much of a co-ordinated effort to sustain a unified campaign.

Trump doesn’t care if the Republican Senate and House candidates are winning or losing. He only cares about his result for he needs to win the election to make sure that he puts an end to all the court cases against him. If he were to lose, he is more than likely to be convicted and jailed over one or more of the many charges against him.

Kamala Harris would normally be concerned with down ballot races to make sure that her party does well enough to gain control of both the Senate and the House for her to be effective and consequential as president. But with all the races being so tight, it has become a case of each one for oneself and money for all.

One ray of optimism is that if Vice President Harris were to win the election and see off Trump, it will also free the Republican legislators from Trump’s stranglehold and make a good number of them amenable to co-operate with their Democrat counterparts for passing critical legislation and authorizing funding for executive initiatives. That is the way, bi-partisan consensus in the middle, the American system has been working for nearly two centuries.

The scary and not at all unlikely scenario is the Republican jackpot – Trump winning the presidency and the Republicans taking control of both the House and the Senate. Trump will get rid of all the cases against him, and he will slash corporate taxes and create a deregulated environment for billionaire businessmen. Many of them led by Elan Musk are openly bankrolling Trump’s election campaign.

With a jackpot victory, the Administration will force Republican legislators to pass enabling laws to implement the loony agenda of ‘Project 2025’, the handbook of action items for Trump’s second term prepared by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank group. The Supreme Court with its super majority of conservative judges is well set up to give judicial cover to whatever the second Trump Administration may want to do.

Turn the Page

In another ten days after the US election, on November 14, Sri Lankans will be voting to elect a new parliament that will have to cohabit the island’s state with its new President – AKD. Cohabitation in presidential parlance refers to the situation in which the executive president and the prime minister in parliament belong to two different political parties. The implication is that a presidential-parliamentary system works best when the president and the prime minister are from the same party. When they are not, cohabitation will ensue with all the risks that it entails. That is the system that is in France that Sri Lanka has copied with expedient changes. The US system is different.

The late JR Jayewardene, the father and the mother of Sri Lanka’s presidential system, had a fondness for envisaging Sri Lanka’s new presidential system and the old parliamentary system evolving into being in a marital relationship. That presupposes the president and the prime minister belonging to same party. But JRJ did not quite pay much attention to the possibility and attendant risks of the two belonging to different parties. He may have tried to forestall this possibility by contriving to keep the UNP permanently in power, but his schemes ran out of steam after 17 years in 1994. And it has been a slow death for the UNP ever since.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is not facing the possibility of being a cohabitation president. His NPP is generally expected to win at least a simple majority (113+) in parliament. A two-thirds majority will be a far shot. But the same pundits who described AKD as a ‘minority president’ because he did not get more than fifty percent of the votes or even a majority of the second and third preferential votes, are now worried that the NPP may end up getting a two-thirds majority of over 150 MPs in parliament. Their fears stem from the total disarray among the opposition parties.

Sajith Premadasa who lost his second presidential election in succession to different opponents, just like his bête noire Ranil Wickremesinghe in 1999 and 2005, pompously declared himself as the Prime Ministerial candidate for the parliamentary election. An absurd assertion that only shows how the presidential ethos has corroded the institution of parliament even as presidential powers have subordinated the legislature to the executive.

Mr. Premadasa has since gone quiet because of internal dissension and lack of any external traction. It is the same with every other political party. They are all in disarray. Disarrays that have long been in the making and have now come to pass. The NPP is not the cause but the fortuitous beneficiary of the overall opposition disintegration. Regardless of all the forebodings about an AKD presidency and an NPP government, Sri Lanka is better off having AKD and the NPP in government than any combination of all of the others who were in the last parliament. It is a breath of fresh air as some of have been saying. The challenge is to keep the new regime going the way it has been so far.

It is still too early to make sense of how the results of the parliamentary election will turn out. But based on the September presidential election results and accounting for proportional allocation of seats in the 22 electoral districts including the National List of 29 MPs, the NPP should get around 93 seats in parliament and that would be 20 short of a simple majority.

With the general enthusiasm around the NPP after the presidential election and the opposition disarray, the NPP could conceivably get an additional 20 seats for a simple majority. Getting to 150 seats will need an electoral tsunami. For comparison, in the 2020 parliamentary election, the SLPP polled 59% of the vote and obtained 145 seats. Within four years the SLPP and the Rajapaksas have gone from heroes to virtual zeros. So much for the impermanence of power and the fickleness of parliamentary sweeps.

Turning to the opposition candidates in September, the votes polled by Premadasa and Wickremasinghe respectively correspond to about 75 and 40 seats in parliament. But the vote totals of Premadasa and Wickremesinghe at the presidential election include significant proportions of votes from the Northern, Eastern and Central provinces and they will not accrue to the SJB and (Ranil’s) New Democratic Front in the parliamentary elections. So, the SJB and the NDF will get fewer seats than 75 and 40, respectively.

Overall, the opposition parties should be able to garner over 100 seats in the new parliament. That would be entirely because of the system of proportional representation, and it will not at all be reflective of the political vibes in the country. In a first past the post system, the NPP would win a landslide majority, like the United Front in 1970 and the UNP in 1977. But the people and the country are tired of both parliamentary tyrannies and presidential dictatorship. The NPP is promising something different.

The uncertainty is about voter turnout. In the presidential election, the voter turnout dropped by 5% from 84% in 2019 to 79%. For a second election in as many months, the turnout is likely to be even lower. The turnout was 76% for the 2020 parliamentary election, an 8% drop from the 2019 presidential election. Even though the Covid pandemic was a factor in 2020, it should not be surprising if the turnout for October 14 drops to be in the low 70s%. With the NPP the most organized for mobilizing its turnout, a low voter turnout overall will be disadvantageous to the opposition parties.

There is also election fatigue among the people. Elections of one form or another have been anticipated for nearly two years ever since aragalaya drove Gotabaya Rajapaksa out of power. As interim president, Ranil Wickremesinghe tired everyone by playing games with election timing until he could not do anything about the timing of the presidential election. Ideally, the two elections could and should have been held together. That may have even saved some political bacon for Mr. Wickremesinghe. But he was always too clever by half, but cleverness alone does not win elections.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been pitching her campaign with the slogan to ‘turn the page’ after a decade of Trumpian politics in the US. Whether or not she will succeed remains to be seen. But Sri Lanka has turned the page quite effortlessly, so to speak. The bigger task now is to start writing the next chapter. That should start the day after November 14.

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Features

Political violence stalking Trump administration

Published

18 hours ago

2026/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

A scene that unfolded during the shooting incident at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington. (BBC)

It would not be particularly revelatory to say that the US is plagued by ‘gun violence’. It is a deeply entrenched and widespread malaise that has come in tandem with the relative ease with which firearms could be acquired and owned by sections of the US public, besides other causes.

However, a third apparent attempt on the life of US President Donald Trump in around two and a half years is both thought-provoking and unsettling for the defenders of democracy. After all, whatever its short comings the US remains the world’s most vibrant democracy and in fact the ‘mightiest’ one. And the US must remain a foremost democracy for the purpose of balancing and offsetting the growing power of authoritarian states in the global power system, who are no friends of genuine representational governance.

Therefore, the recent breaching of the security cordon surrounding the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington at which President Trump and his inner Cabinet were present, by an apparently ‘Lone Wolf’ gunman, besides raising issues relating to the reliability of the security measures deployed for the President, indicates a notable spike in anti-VVIP political violence in particular in the US. It is a pointer to a strong and widespread emergence of anti-democratic forces which seem to be gaining in virulence and destructiveness.

The issues raised by the attack are in the main for the US’ political Right and its supporters. They have smugly and complacently stood by while the extremists in their midst have taken centre stage and begun to dictate the course of Right wing politics. It is the political culture bred by them that leads to ‘Lone Wolf’ gunmen, for instance, who see themselves as being repressed or victimized, taking the law into their own hands, so to speak, and perpetrating ‘revenge attacks’ on the state and society.

A disproportionate degree of attention has been paid particularly internationally to Donald Trump’s personality and his eccentricities but such political persons cannot be divorced from the political culture in which they originate and have their being. That is, “structural” questions matter. Put simply, Donald Trump is a ‘true son’ of the Far Right, his principal support base. The issues raised are therefore for the President as well as his supporters of the Right.

We are obliged to respect the choices of the voting public but in the case of Trump’s election to the highest public position in the US, this columnist is inclined to see in those sections that voted for Trump blind followers of the latter who cared not for their candidate’s suitability, in every relevant respect, and therefore acted irrationally. It would seem that the Right in the US wanted their candidate to win by ‘hook or by crook’ and exercise power on their behalf.

By making the above observations this columnist does not intend to imply that voting publics everywhere in the world of democracy cast their vote sensibly. In the case of Sri Lanka, for example, the question could be raised whether the voters of the country used their vote sensibly when voting into office the majority of Executive Presidents and other persons holding high public office. The obvious answer is ‘no’ and this should lead to a wider public discussion on the dire need for thoroughgoing voter education. The issue is a ‘huge’ one that needs to be addressed in the appropriate forums and is beyond the scope of this column.

Looking back it could be said that the actions of Trump and his die-hard support base led to the Rule of Law in the US being undermined as perhaps never before in modern times. A shaming moment in this connection was the protest march, virtually motivated by Trump, of his supporters to the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021, with the aim of scuttling the presidential poll result of that year. Much violence and unruly behaviour, as known, was let loose. This amounted to denigrating the democratic process and encouraging the violent take over of the state.

In a public address, prior to the unruly conduct of his supporters, Trump is on record as blaring forth the following: ‘We won this election and we won by a landslide’, ‘We will stop the steal’, ‘We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen’, ‘If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.’

It is plain to see that such inflammatory utterances could lead impressionable minds in particular to revolt violently. Besides, they should have led the more rationally inclined to wonder whether their candidate was the most suitable person to hold the office of President.

Unfortunately, the latter process was not to be and the question could be raised whether the US is in the ‘safest pair of hands’. Needless to say, as events have revealed, Donald Trump is proving to be one of the most erratic heads of state the US has ever had.

However, the latest attempt on the life of President Trump suggests that considerable damage has been done to the democratic integrity of the US and none other than the President himself has to take on himself a considerable proportion of the blame for such degeneration, besides the US’ Far Right. They could be said to be ‘reaping the whirlwind.’

It is a time for soul-searching by the US Right. The political Right has the right to exist, so the speak, in a functional democracy but it needs to take cognizance of how its political culture is affecting the democratic integrity or health of the US. Ironically, the repressive and chauvinistic politics advocated by it is having the effect of activating counter-violence of the most murderous kind, as was witnessed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Continued repressive politics could only produce more such incidents that could be self-defeating for the US.

Some past US Presidents were assassinated but the present political violence in the country brings into focus as perhaps never before the role that an anti-democratic political culture could play in unraveling the gains that the US has made over the decades. A duty is cast on pro-democracy forces to work collectively towards protecting the democratic integrity and strength of the US.

Features

22nd Anniversary Gala …action-packed event

Published

18 hours ago

2026/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

The Skyliners: Shanaka Viswakula (bass), Mario Ranasuriya (lead guitar), Daryl D'Souza (keyboards) and Kushmin Balasuriya (drums)

The Editor-in-Chief of The Sri Lankan Anchorman, a Toronto-based monthly, celebrating Sri Lankan community life in Canada, is none other than veteran Sri Lankan journalist Dirk Tissera, who moved to Canada in 1997. His wife, Michelle, whom he calls his “tower of strength”, is the Design Editor.

According to reports coming my way, the paper has turned out to be extremely popular in Toronto.

In fact, The Sri Lankan Anchorman won a press award in Toronto for excellence in editorial content and visual presentation.

However, the buzz in the air in Canada, right now, is The Sri Lankan Anchorman’s 22nd Anniversary Gala, to be held on Friday, 12 June, 2026, at the J&J Swagat Banquet Convention Centre, in Toronto.

An action-packed programme has been put together for the night, featuring some of the very best artistes in the Toronto scene.

The Skylines, who are classified as ‘the local musical band in Toronto’, will headline the event.

Dirk Tissera and wife Michelle: Supporting Sri Lanka-Canada community events, in Toronto, since launching The Anchorman
in 2002

They have performed and backed many legendary Sri Lanka singers.

According to Dirk, The Skylines can belt out a rhythm with gusto … be it Western, Sinhala or Tamil hits.

Also adding sparkle to the evening will be the legendary Fahmy Nazick, who, with his smooth and velvety vocals, will have the crowd on the floor.

Fahmy who was a household name, back in Sri Lanka, will be flying down from Virginia, USA.

He has captivated audiences in Sri Lanka, the Middle East and North America, and this will be his fourth visit to Toronto – back by popular demand,

Cherry DeLuna, who is described by Dirk as a powerhouse, also makes her appearance on stage and is all set to stir up the tempo with her cool and easy delivery.

“She’s got a great voice and vocal range that has captivated audiences out here”, says Dirk.

Chamil Welikala, said to be one of the hottest DJs in town, will be spinning his magic … in English, Sinhala, Tamil and Latin.

Both Jive and Baila competitions are on the cards among many other surprises on the night of 12 June.

This is The Anchorman’s fifth annual dance in a row – starting from 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 – and both Dirk and Michelle, and The Anchorman, have always produced elegant social events in Toronto.

“We intend to knock this one out of the park,” the duo says, adding that Western music and Sinhala and Tamil songs is something they’ve always delivered and the crowd loves it.

“We have always supported Sri Lanka-Canada community events, in Toronto, since launching The Anchorman, in 2002, and we intend to keep it that way.”

No doubt, there will be a large crowd of Sri Lankans, from all communities, turning up, on 12 June, to support Dirk, Michelle and The Anchorman.

Features

Face Pack for Radiant Skin

Published

18 hours ago

2026/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

* Apple and Orange:

Blend a few apple and orange pieces together. Add to it a pinch of turmeric and one tablespoon of honey. Apply it to the face and neck and rinse off after 30 minutes. This face pack is suitable for all skin types.

According to experts, apple is one of the best fruits for your skin health with Vitamin A, B complex and Vitamin C and minerals, while, with the orange peel, excessive oil secretion can be easily balanced.

* Mango and Curd:

Ripe mango pulp, mixed with curd, can be rubbed directly onto the skin to remove dirt and cleanse clogged pores. Rinse off after a few minutes.

Yes, of course, mango is a tasty and delicious fruit and this is the mango season in our part of the world, and it has extra-ordinary benefits to skin health. Vitamins C and E in mangoes protect the skin from the UV rays of the sun and promotes cell regeneration. It also promotes skin elasticity and fights skin dullness and acne, while curd, in combination, further adds to it.

* Grapes and Kiwi:

Take a handful of grapes and make a pulp of it. Simultaneously, take one kiwi fruit and mash it after peeling its skin. Now mix them and add some yoghurt to it. Apply it on your face for few minutes and wash it off.

Here again experts say that kiwi is the best nutrient-rich fruit with high vitamin C, minerals, Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E, while grapes contain flavonoids, which is an antioxidant that protects the skin from free radical damage. This homemade face pack acts as a natural cleanser and slows down the ageing process.