There appeared to be more police riot squad personnel than protesters in Colombo on Wednesday (02)! What one beheld was a sea of white police helmets. Uniformed policemen wearing gas masks formed a wall of sorts across the road,...
Will Ranil Wickremesinghe make the SLPP regret having elected him the President and thrown a lifeline to his party, the UNP? This is the question one asks oneself when one hears some UNP seniors boasting at media briefings that...
Many MPs, especially those in the Opposition, waxed eloquent on the virtues of checks and balances during the recent parliamentary debate on the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill, which was ratified, last week, with the Opposition voting for it...
Last Friday’s vote in the parliament on the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill turned out to be a sort of contest between Basil Rajapaksa and his political rivals, who scored an impressive victory. It is no secret that...
There have appeared signs of trouble brewing in the SLPP-UNP government. The two parties got on like a house on fire for a couple of months following the appointment of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister, at the...
The beleaguered SLPP has sought to have the people believe that it has come in from the cold. It embarked on a reorganization campaign by holding a meeting in Kalutara over the weekend under the leadership of former President...
That the government would baulk at taking up the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill for debate on Thursday (06) and putting it to the vote the following day was a foregone conclusion. It does not have a two-thirds...
All main political parties in Sri Lanka are experiencing problems, albeit to varying degrees, and some of them even show signs of disintegration. This augurs ill for the country’s democracy, which has come under severe strain, as evident from...
Saturday’s protest by the JVP youth wing, the Socialist Youth Union (SYU), in Colombo, could be considered an attempt to trigger another wave of anti-government agitations, which seem to have let up during the past several weeks. The government...
Sri Lanka’s electoral system is in the news again. President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said the government is keen to introduce electoral reforms, and even ready to seek people’s approval for them at a referendum in case it fails to...
Aragalaya has fizzled out, and the government seems to think it is out of danger and free to do as it pleases. It is reverting old ways. Hope is said to spring eternal, and when Ranil Wickremesinghe became the President,...
by Vishvanath
These are bad days for the Sri Lankan political parties, some of which have suffered crippling splits. No sooner had a group of 13 SLPP MPs opted to sit in the Opposition as an independent group than nine...
