The Proclamation on the State of Emergency, announced by then-Acting President and incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe on 17 July followed by a Gazette on 18 July, was debated and passed in Parliament yesterday (27), with 120 votes in favour of it and 63 against.
This proclamation was made by Wickremesinghe through the Special Gazette No. 2288/30 and according to the legal provisions, if the approval of Parliament is not obtained within 14 days for the said proclamation, it will be cancelled.
Speaking during the debate, Opposition and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Leader Sajith Premadasa said that the real emergency remains in people dying in fuel queues, mothers not having milk powder for their babies, schools being shut due to there being no transport for students, there being no medicines for the healthcare sector, and where people cannot eat three meals a day in a bankrupt country.
“However, today, we are debating on the emergency to enforce State terrorism. For months, protestors protested peacefully in front of the Presidential Secretariat. Was it not a very peaceful display of their democratic rights? Where did the violence start and who started it? It was the former Prime Minister and incumbent Government MP Mahinda Rajapaksa, who started the violence from the Temple Trees on 9 May.
“We did not anticipate this massive public power. Even I did not believe that such a thing would happen, where both the Prime Minister and the President had to go home. What started at the Temple Trees was terrorism. What followed later that day on 9 May was also terrorism. That is not humanity. Civil members of society do not behave like that. I do not know which stupid person gave this dumb advice to President Wickremesinghe on the night of 22 July to attack the protestors at the Presidential Secretariat, right after he took oaths as President. There were mothers, children, disabled soldiers, journalists, and civil society members, all of whom had said that they would leave the Secretariat the next day. Then why was this State terror unleashed on them? I cannot believe that an experienced person like Wickremesinghe would do something so stupid,” said Premadasa, in condemnation.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Sri Lanka should kick off debt restructuring talks with its bilateral lender China, while the island state’s government seeks a financing loan from the Washington-based fund.
“China is a big creditor, and Sri Lanka has to engage proactively with it on a debt restructuring,” Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
Singapore has extended a short-stay visa for Sri Lanka’s deposed president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, local media in the city-state reported on Wednesday.
Mr. Rajapaksa fled his country on July 13, after his official residence was stormed by thousands of protesters who had demonstrated for months against the island nation’s painful economic crisis.
He first escaped to the Maldives in a military plane and travelled on to Singapore, where he has been staying on a short-term visit pass since July 14.
Mr. Rajapaksa’s 14-day visit pass has been extended, allowing him to stay until August 11, the Straits Times newspaper reported Wednesday, without citing a source.
A suspect named Dhaniz Ali, who is alleged to have entered the Sri Lanka Rupavahini (Television) Corporation (SLRC) premises in Colombo 7 and interfered with its broadcasting, was ordered to be remanded till 5 August by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court yesterday evening following his dramatic arrest by Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers aboard a flight to Dubai UAE on Tuesday (26).
In the videos related to the incident, a group of officers of the CID who had boarded the relevant aircraft that was about to depart from the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in Katunayake was seen arresting the suspect amidst opposition from the suspect himself, as well as other passengers. The other passengers who were aboard the flight were seen asking the CID officers why airport officers had cleared the suspect if there was an arrest warrant issued against him.
In a press release issued by the Police Media Division (PMD) after his arrest, it was stated that the suspect was arrested for allegedly entering the SLRC premises located in the Cinnamon Garden Police area, and making a threatening statement on live television, thereby suspending its broadcasting for a certain period.
The arrest of the suspect, a 31-year-old resident of the Kurunegala area was, according to the PMD, made by the officers attached to the CID unit established at the BIA.
Wajira Abeywardana was sworn in as the United National Party’s (UNP) National List Parliamentarian yesterday (27), while Minister of Education Dr. Susil Premajayantha was appointed as the new Leader of the House and Minister of Urban Development and Housing Prasanna Ranatunga was re-appointed Chief Government Whip.
Abeywardena took oaths before Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena. He was elected to Parliament for the first time from Galle District representing the UNP at the 1994 election. Thereon, until 2010, Abeywardana was elected to Parliament at every election from Galle District representing the United National Party. In the 2015 Parliamentary Election, he was elected to Parliament representing the Galle district.
He has worked in the capacity of the Minister of State Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils, and Local Government, and as Minister of State Administration, Management, and Reform Projects. He is currently the Chairman of the United National Party (UNP).
Abeywardana, born in 1961, is an alumnus of Mahinda Vidyalaya, Galle. He also holds a degree in engineering from the University of Moratuwa.
“Gota Go Home” was the clarion call aroind which the people launched their “Aragalaya” or Struggle many weeks ago. It has now achieved its primary goal. Gota has been made to go , but to which permanent home remains an unanswered question still.It is also unclear as to whether he would be able to find a safe abode in a country of his choice. Gota would of course like to return to California where his only son resides and where he himself lived for over 12 years. At the same time ,it would render him vulnerable to legal action without presidential immunity. As for now the certainty is that Gota has gone and the Aragalaya is celebrating the sweet smell of success.
A remarkably significant outcome of the Aragalaya has been the emergence of the “Peratugami Samajavadi Pakshaya”( Frontline Socialist Party as an influential player in Sri Lankan politics. The FSP along with its undergraduate front “Anthar Vishvavidyaleeya Shishya Balamandalaya”( Inter-University Students’ Federation) played key roles in the struggle. Veteran political journalist Victor Ivan opines that the FSP took control of the uprising and claimed ownership of the struggle. Here are relevant excerpts from Victor’s latest article “What could be the end of the revolution?” in the “Daily FT”of July 15th 2022-
Extraordinary foresight is scarcely needed to have predicted the State’s attack on Sri Lanka’s globally feted protest site at the Galle Face Green in the wee hours of Friday morning, July 22nd 2022.
Why this provocative show of strength?
As formidable contingents of baton wielding masked military and the police took ‘control’ of the site, they set about systematically dismantling protest structures, including the library and the medical tent, badly beating up unarmed lawyers, priests, journalists, dragging away and arresting young men and women peacefully walking on Galle Road towards the Galle Face. Hours later, an inflappable President Ranil Wickremesinghe presided over the swearing in of his Cabinet, chockfull of the same political rogues.
The contrast between these two happenings could not have been more stark. Why, some perplexed Sri Lankans ask, did the country’s eighth Executive President embark on this provocative show of strength, on his first day in office? This was despite the protestors assuring that they would ‘hand over’ the protest site on Friday afternoon and give the ‘new man’ some time to tackle the country’s most pressing economic ills. The answer to that question is also predictable.
Any appearance of concession, the very thought of meekly ‘accepting’ a ‘hand over’ by protestors on the basis of a ‘trial period to govern properly’ is nothing short of anathema to the new President, it seems. Originally named as ‘GotaGoGama,’ this was far more than a camp with tents. Despite being infiltrated by elements of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and its offshoot, the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) to its discredit, it remained a potent ideal of people power. That ideal is what is sought to be crushed, ironically after the departure of the President who inspired it.
A pincer move to crush genuine gains of protestors
When the United National Party (UNP) was all but wiped out at the 2020 parliamentary elections, many were quick to write off the party and its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as a spent force in politics. It took almost a year of squabbles within the party for Mr Wickremesinghe to even be appointed to the UNP’s sole national list seat. He took oath as an MP on June 23 last year.
Just 13 months later, last Wednesday, he cemented one of the all-time great comebacks in politics when Parliament elected him as Sri Lanka’s 8th Executive President.
To say what happened was remarkable would be a gross understatement. A man who saw much of his party abandon him, and who presided over the UNP’s worst-ever electoral defeat, finally achieved his long cherished dream of becoming president. The overwhelming majority of those who voted for him were those who had been his staunchest political opponents until three months ago.
Wednesday’s vote was historic as it was the first time that Parliament held a secret ballot to elect a president. In 1993, Parliament unanimously elected Dingiri Banda Wijetunga as president following the assassination of Ranasinghe Premadasa.
With three candidates putting forward their names to replace Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president, however, a vote had to be taken in terms of the constitution.
(The writer is the former editor of The Sunday Island,
The Island and consultant editor of the Sunday Leader)
Both pundits and the hoi polloi now agree that when Sri Lanka was at the critical juncture in deciding whether to take the straight and narrow hard way or muddle through and be engulfed in chaos, a correct decision was made to go to the IMF.
However, it was not wisdom that resulted in going to this UN institute with 189-member countries but the stark reality of bankruptcy threatening the nation.
Military men do not like to obey the dictates of others. And Lt Col (Retd) former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in no mood to listen to the dictates of others– not even of the IMF. The IMF, it was well known, imposes ‘conditionalities’ on its borrowers, like most money lenders, and Rajapaksa at the height of his power was in no mood to obey.
He had won the Presidential election polling 6.92 million votes (52.25 percent) and following that victory the Pohottuwa (Rajapaksa Party) swept the parliamentary polls winning a two-thirds majority. He then proceeded to enact the 20th Amendment which gave him powers that no other executive president has ever had.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent a congratulatory message to Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Ranil Wickremesinghe, nearly a week after his rise to the island nation’s helm amid political upheaval triggered by a severe economic meltdown.
Mr. Modi’s outreach to Mr. Wickremesinghe follows messages from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Sri Lankan leader, who is counting on urgent international support to cope with the deepening crisis. The Indian High Commission in Colombo, which put out a tweet on July 20 — the day of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s election in Parliament — noted the development but stopped short of congratulating him. This was hours after the Indian mission “categorically denied” media reports of India attempting to “influence” the key parliament vote.
“You have assumed the high office at a critical time for Sri Lanka,” Mr. Modi said in the letter dated July 25. Expressing hope that Mr. Wickremesinghe’s tenure would “nurture” economic stability and “fulfill the aspirations of all citizens”, the Indian Prime Minister said: “As a close friend and neighbour of Sri Lanka, India will continue to be supportive of the quest of the people of Sri Lanka for stability and economic recovery, through established democratic means, institutions and constitutional framework.”
“A wandering fire at a terrible height –
can it be a star shining like that? Osip Mandelstam (Poem 101)
A walking path bordered by the sea and a bit of lawn with few struggling saplings; a ‘marina’ sans yacht or boat (like that airport with no planes). Port City Marina Promenade, inaugurated in January 2022 by President Gotabaya, PM Mahinda and Chinese foreign minister, became an instant wonder. Almost 90,000 people visited it one week.
In January 2022, as masses thronged a sea-path masquerading as a marina, the economy was crumbling, gas and milk powder queues had begun, and poverty and unemployment were accelerating. Yet there was no demand for the Rajapaksas to go. According to an IHP tracking poll, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s favourability ratings were high still, higher than Sajith Premadasa’s or Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s. If the anonymous social media campaign which kicked off one of the most successful popular resistance movements of the century had begun in January instead of April, it would have flopped.
The U.S. is doing a small developing country’s dirty work in prosecuting its ex-ambassador for fraud, and it may eventually be cause for discomfort along Embassy Row.
In normal cases, for a foreign diplomat with an instinct for pilfering from their own government, Washington represents a safe posting. Far from home, entertainment expenses can be padded, real estate prices exaggerated, lobbying and PR-consultant fees manipulated. The only thing the bean-counters back at the foreign ministry need to know is that the American capital is an expensive place.
Thanks to diplomatic immunity, whatever workplace scams get cooked up are unlikely to interest the local authorities here.
Still, an unusual proceeding that quietly concluded in a federal courtroom this week suggests there are limits, even with immunity.
The case of former Sri Lankan Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya, who pleaded guilty to defrauding his own government out of $332,000, has gotten significant play in his crisis-stricken home country, where anti-corruption protests this month ousted the president. One of the major complaints against the now-former leader (and his brother, another former president; and their brother, the just-ousted finance minister; and their other brother, a former speaker of parliament) was that they filled the government with crooked relatives.
Highly respected economists and former Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy has said the economic recovery will require painful treatment whilst expressing hope that President Ranil Wickremesinghe would take all the tough decisions to avoid the disastrous situation.
“President Wickremesinghe is economically very literate. He knows what has to be done. At times, it has been difficult for him or any other politician to get it done, given the political dynamics and that toxic populist politics and entitlement culture that has driven the economy to where it is today. But, if President Wickremesinghe understands, he can get it done,” Coomaraswamy said in an interview with The Wire on Saturday.
He said the President seems that he was ready to bite the bullet, noting that if he does not, Sri Lanka will go down the abyss and it will be a disaster.
“First, we need to get an IMF agreement because, at the moment, we neither have foreign exchange nor rupees. The Government does not have fiscal revenue and thus it puts enormous pressure on the Central Bank to print money.
In what friends and admirers, especially in Colombo’s overseas diplomatic corps, had not expected of him, Sri Lanka’s new President Ranil Wickremesinghe ‘swung’ into action on his day one in office to restore law and order in the country that had been badly affected since the ‘Aragalaya’ protests against the then reigning Rajapaksa clan, weeks ago. If the forced, and at times violent, removal of the protestors from the main venue that included the President’s Secretariat, was only a beginning in this regard, Wickremesinghe also did not mince words with Western diplomats who condemned the joint police-military action at midnight, in double-quick time as in the past weeks and in no uncertain terms.
In what was said to be in lighter vein, President Wickremesinghe asked Western diplomats whom he invited for an evening meeting, on their face, what would have their governments done if ‘peaceful protestors’ had similarly occupied the office and residence of their President, back home. If nothing else, this was not the Wickemesinghe that they had known in the past, and had not expected as president, either. In particular, he pointed out how the US deployed troops to vacate violent Trump supporters after they had stormed into the Capitol, leading to firing-after their candidates had lost the presidential election last year.
Ranil wickremesinghe is a familiar sight to anyone who has taken even a passing interest in Sri Lankan politics in recent decades. First elected to Parliament in 1977, he has held a variety of cabinet jobs over the years, including, on six occasions, that of prime minister. His most recent stint was in the service of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose tenure as president came to an ignominious end on July 14th when he tendered his resignation by email from Singapore, having fled the country in the dead of night the day before.
Fearing prosecution for alleged corruption and crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war, the disgraced ex-president is expected to lay low abroad for the foreseeable future. But Mr Wickremesinghe (pictured in effigy) will remain a familiar face around Colombo, the capital. After taking over from his boss in an acting capacity the week before, he was officially elected president by a clear majority of 134 of the 225 members of Parliament on July 20th. He is expected to serve out the remainder of Mr Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024.
His election raises hopes that Sri Lanka, which has been in economic and political turmoil for months, will at last regain the political stability required to solve its economic problems. But Mr Wickremesinghe’s chances of success are complicated by his willingness to work with the Rajapaksas. The protesters who chased Mr Rajapaksa from office had also demanded Mr Wickremesinghe’s resignation as prime minister. Their idea of his stepping down hardly involved a promotion to the highest office in the land. That bodes ill for his chances of uniting Sri Lankans behind him in a time of crisis.
For his admirers, Ranil Wickremesinghe is the president Sri Lanka has lost and found. The late former minister Mangala Samaraweera once described Wickremesinghe as the best president Sri Lanka never had.
In his previous two outings as a presidential candidate, the victory was his, but on both occasions Wickremesinghe lost through no fault of his own. In 1999, opinion polls predicted Wickremesinghe’s victory at the presidential election, but a botched assassination attempt by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on his rival and then President Chandrika Kumaratunga on December 18, just two days before the election, created a sympathy wave and helped the severely wounded president to win with a record majority.
Again in 2005, Wickremesinghe was confident he would win the presidential bid with the Tamils voting overwhelmingly for him. But on the day of the election, an alleged secret deal between the LTTE and rival candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa’s campaign managers saw separatist leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ordering the Tamils to boycott the election. The result: Wickremesinghe lost the election by a narrow margin.
Had he won the 2005 presidential election, he, too, like President Mahinda Rajapaksa, would have ended the war, but in a more dignified manner. He would have fully utilised the domestic support and the favorable international environment, leaving no room for war crimes allegations.
He led his United National Party to victory at two parliamentary elections and became prime minister, but on both occasions, the then executive presidents — Chandrika Kumaratunga and Maithripala Sirisena – did not give him a free hand to implement his development programmes largely due to their fear that he would emerge stronger to win the next presidential election.
Unfairly denied the presidency twice, Wickremesinghe bade his time, perhaps believing that the wheels of justice, though turn slowly, will grind exceedingly fine for him.
His political misfortunes largely stem from his passive or not-so-aggressive approach to politics. He allows his opponents to pejoratively define who he is, yet would not fight back.
Although two Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) National List Opposition MPs had expressed their desire to resign from their positions as MPs to enable former Speaker of Parliament and incumbent National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) Chairman Karu Jayasuriya the opportunity to enter Parliament, Opposition and SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa had allegedly vetoed the move, The Morning learnt.
Speaking to The Morning, sources close to Premadasa claimed that in the early days of the talks regarding the formation of an interim all party Government in the wake of the economic crisis in the country, there were discussions within the SJB about giving Jayasuriya the opportunity to enter Parliament.
The sources further claimed that during those discussions, two National List MPs representing the SJB, namely Mayantha Dissanayake who is also related to Jayasuriya, and incumbent Minister Harin Fernando, had expressed their consent to resign as MPs and to give Jayasuriya the opportunity to enter the Parliament. According to the sources, discussions had been held regarding offering Jayasuriya a high-level position in an interim Government to be formed according to that plan.
Disruptive and violent populist movements have undoubtedly registered successes, ending oppressive regimes and giving the dumb millions a voice to express dissent forcefully. But in the long run, these movements have delivered only partially and that too, briefly, literature on the subject shows.
The question that is in the minds of observers of the Sri Lankan Aragalaya movement is: Will it go the way of similar movements in other countries in the past or will it have a lasting salutary effect?
Sri Lankan security forces have carried out a violent early morning raid on the main anti-government protest camp in Colombo, beating protesters, destroying tents and arresting nine people.
Friday’s raid saw thousands of police and troops armed with riot gear descend on the protest camp, known as Gota Go Gama, where hundreds of people have been living for over three months. More than 50 people were injured and three people were sent to hospital in the attack, according to St John Ambulance volunteers at the scene.
The crackdown came a day after Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is an unpopular figure, was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s new president following the toppling of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to flee the country amid huge public anger.
According to those present for the raid, armed military officers in black uniforms began violently clearing tents close to the Presidential Secretariat building, the offices of the president which have been occupied by protesters since an anti-government protest last week.
Nine people were arrested, a police spokesperson said, adding that the protesters had “no legal right to hold the area”.
A huge military contingent, along with police, raided Galle Face in Colombo early on Friday, where anti-government protesters have peacefully agitated for over three months in the wake of the island nation’s grave economic crisis. Several protesters were assaulted by soldiers, eyewitnesses said.
The military attack on the main agitation site comes less than 24 hours after Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as President, amid political tumult in the island after dramatic citizens’ protests on July 9 led to former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing Sri Lanka.
As Acting President Mr. Wickremesinghe declared an Emergency on Monday, two days ahead of a crucial parliament vote in which he was elected President.
The military’s aggressive takeover of the protest site in the early hours on Friday shocked many, as activists had announced they would vacate the area by Friday afternoon. At least eight persons, including lawyers and activists, were arrested.
The military in Sri Lanka has taken control of the presidential secretariat in the capital after “brutally assaulting” the protesters.
Soldiers also destroyed tents at the adjacent GotaGoGama protest site, arrested several protest leaders and cordoned off the area together with about 100 protesters.
The military assault came hours after the protesters withdrew from the camp in front of Temple Trees, the prime minister’s official residence. The protesters had already announced their intention to withdraw from the presidential secretariat on July 22.
The new Cabinet of Ministers were sworn in today before President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Accordingly, 18 cabinet ministers including former minister Ali Sabry were sworn in today.
Former minister of Foreign Affairs G.L Pieris who proposed Dullas Alahapperuma as the presidential candidate has been removed from his ministerial portfolio and replaced with Ali Sabry.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was sworn in President of Sri Lanka on Thursday, is expected to appoint long-time Rajapaksa loyalist and senior politician Dinesh Gunawardena as Prime Minister, a source close to the President’s office told The Hindu.
Further, Mr. Wickremesinghe will continue with the last-appointed Cabinet until Opposition parties are “ready to cooperate” in an all-party government, the source said, requesting anonymity.
President Wickremesinghe, who faces fierce public criticism for joining the discredited Rajapaksa government earlier, has invited all parties to join his government to combat the national economic crisis, which set off political upheaval and led to changes at the island nation’s helm. Opposition parties are yet to signal their willingness.
Six-time Prime Minister and acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe was on July 20 elected President of Sri Lanka — a post that has eluded him despite a near-half century political career — in extraordinary circumstances of a political crisis triggered by the island’s economic crash.
Mr. Wickremesinghe won 134 votes in the 225-member Parliament, securing a comfortable victory margin in a three-way contest. Dullas Alahapperuma, a formerly Rajapaksa-aligned, now independent MP, won 82 votes, despite several independent lawmakers, the main opposition, and most minority parties pledging to back him on Tuesday. The leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake won just three votes. Two MPs abstained from the vote.
“The time for division is over,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said in his first remarks after clinching Presidency. He urged all political parties to come together to take the country on the path of economic recovery.
Perseverant Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday reinforced his often underestimated prowess by becoming Sri Lanka’s 8th Executive President, comfortably winning a secret ballot from Parliamentarians with support mainly from colleagues loyal to ousted Rajapaksa regime.
Pic via Daily Mirror
Of the 225-member Parliament, 223 voted with 2 MPs (MPs Selvaraja Gajendran and G.G. Ponnambalam) abstaining and 4 ballots rejected as invalid.
Wickremesinghe received 134 votes against the 82 received by Dullas Alahapperuma. JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake managed only 3 votes.
Though political activists questioned the legitimacy, the victory fulfils a long-cherished dream of the 73-year-old veteran who marks 45 years in Parliament and has served a record six times as Prime Minister.
“My life has been in this Parliament,” said an enthusiastic Wickremesinghe in his brief address in the House after winning. Fittingly on his wishes, Wickremesinghe will be sworn in today at 10 a.m. in Parliament, a departure from his predecessors who opted for more grandiose or religiously important locations. He will serve the remainder of the term of the ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa till end 2024.
President and United National Party (UNP) Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday (20) invited all political parties in Parliament to join hands for the betterment of the country, while thanking the majority in Parliament for electing him as the 8th Executive President of the country.
“I spent 45 years of my life in this Parliament. My life was spent in this Parliament. I thank this Parliament for giving me this honour. In 1993, when former President R. Premadasa was assassinated, we convened to select a new President. That was done so without an election. For the first time, in this second instance, we had an election. On the one hand, we showed that this Parliament can select a new President through a vote. I thank everybody who voted for me, and I also thank everybody who participated in this election,” said Wickremesinghe.
He said that the country is in a deep crisis today, with the economic crisis, and noted that the youth are demanding a system change.
Army yesterday issued a tougher warning to unruly protestors saying that its soldiers have been empowered to use force to protect lives and State property from any harm.
In a statement Army said members of the armed forces and the Police in terms of provisions, vested in them by the Constitution of Sri Lanka have been empowered to enforce law and order of the country and maintain the same in order to protect her people, public property and the country at large at the expense of their own lives.
This has been practised since the country became an independent State and a free nation, through which the sovereignty of the republic, freedom of expression and free movement of the public as enshrined in the Constitution are upheld and exercised as it has been distinctly manifested in the most recent months during the series of public protests that began in May this year.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that his party’s candidate was unable to win the Presidential election in Parliament today.
“We presented Dullas. We voted for him, but lost. Somebody has to win,” he told media in parliament.
“He (Ranil) got more votes, so he became the president. That’s what has happened. We are waiting to see what will happen in the future. Whatever the government is, it must work for the people of the country,” he said.
Sri Lanka will witness a three-cornered race for Presidency on Wednesday, as the island awaits a new leader and government after an astounding people’s uprising ousted Gotabaya Rajapaksa last week.
Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe; the formerly Rajapaksa-aligned, and now independent Dullas Alahapperuma; and the leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake were on Tuesday nominated by parties in Parliament, a day ahead of the poll through a secret ballot.
Although Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa had earlier announced he would contest, he withdrew his bid on Tuesday morning. “For the greater good of my country that I love and the people I cherish I hereby withdraw my candidacy for the position of President. @sjbsrilanka [Samagi Jana Balawegaya – SJB or United People’s Power] and our alliance and our opposition partners will work hard towards making @DullasOfficial victorious,” he said in a tweet, pledging support for Mr. Alahapperuma.
Mr. Premadasa later urged India to help Sri Lanka regardless of Wednesday’s outcome in the key vote. “Irrespective of who becomes the President of Sri Lanka tomorrow it is my humble and earnest request to Hon. PM Shri @narendramodi, to all the political parties of India and to the people of India to keep helping mother Lanka and it’s people to come out of this disaster,” he said in a tweet on Tuesday evening.
On 13 July 2022, Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled from Sri Lanka under cover of darkness to an unknown destination. Even before his departure he had been in hiding. On the day he left, the country was informed that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as his stand-in during his absence abroad.
The reason that Gotabaya Rajapaksa gave for the appointment was that by virtue of his absence abroad he was unable to discharge the powers, duties, and functions of his office. In fact, it was clear to everyone that he was unable to function as President even before he went abroad. On 9 July, he fled his official residence to some location unknown to the general public.
He went abroad because he was unable to function in his office. This was the actual reason as to why Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe. Hence, the appointment does not fit in with Article 37(1) and is constitutionally questionable.
A vacancy occurred before 13 July by virtue of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s desertion from office. By vacating his office, he would be deemed to have resigned from office on 11 July causing a vacancy to arise under Article 38(b) as of that date. When a deemed resignation occurs, it would be futile if not absurd to require a formal letter of resignation.
Prime Minister and Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday briefly recapped multiple achievements during the past 67 days in office.
In a special statement, Acting President Wickremesinghe explained that when he took over as Prime Minister on 13 May the economy had collapsed, with power cuts lasting five hours a day. In the two months since then, the Acting President explained that power cuts had been reduced to three hours a day, fertiliser has been provided to the farmers and the gas shortage in the country has been solved.
He further stated that last minute he explained July would be a difficult period for the supply of fuel. However, diesel stocks have been secured and are being distributed while from 21 July petrol will also be distributed.
The all-important Presidency will come up for a secret ballot today morning in Parliament with a close fight expected among the top two contenders in the three-cornered battle.
When nominations were called in yesterday in Parliament, Prime Minister and Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe was proposed by SLPP MP Dinesh Gunawardena who is tipped to be Prime Minister candidate and seconded by Manusha Nanayakkara. SLPP independent group MP Dullas Alahapperuma was proposed by SJB leader Sajith Premadasa and seconded by G.L. Peiris. This was after Premadasa withdrew from the race claiming it was for the greater good of the country and the people. He said SJB, alliance and opposition partners will work hard towards making Dullas victorious. Premadasa hopes to be the Prime Minister if Dullas wins.
JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake was proposed by Vijitha Herath and seconded by Dr. Harini Amarasuriya.
A close fight between veteran Wickremesinghe, who is backed by the majority of SLPP MPs among others and under-dog Dullas, is expected at the vote which begins at 10 a.m.
SLFP with nine MPs last night formally announced its support to Dullas, a decision made with the backing of leader and former President Maithripala Sirisena and General Secretary MP Dayasiri Jayasekara and the Central Working Committee.
The 10-member TNA also pledged support to Dullas whilst its MPs held a joint meeting with him and Premadasa.
The “Tamil Times” (TT) was a monthly newsmagazine published in the United Kingdom(UK) for more than 25 years from October 1981 to December 2006. It was a political journal that focused on news, views and reviews pertaining to Sri Lanka in general and the Tamil People of Sri Lanka in particular. At it’s heyday the TT circulation was close upon five digits of which 95% was through subscriptions. However the qualitative impact and influence of “Tamil Times” went far beyond the boundaries of its quantitative circulation.
Periyathamby Rajanayagam (Oct 3, 1936 – June 17, 2022)
The TT was edited from its inception by Periyathamby Rajanayagam known as Raja or Raja Annan (elder brother) to friends and acquaintances including myself. Many others called him Rasa or Rasa Annan. Since I knew him as Raja and/or Raja Annan I will refer to him as such. Rajanayagam was a man of great character and integrity whose profession was the law and vocation, journalism.
Sadly Rajanayagam passed away peacefully on June 17 at the Lewisham Hospital in London. He was 86 years of age and had been ailing for sometime. The funeral was on July 7 at the Hither Green crematorium in South East London.This two- part article therefore is my way of paying tribute to a man whom I liked, admired and respected immensely. Furthermore the life and work of Raja Annan is indeed a tale worthy of recounting.
The staggering visual of tens of thousands breaching the high, iron gates of Sri Lanka’s heavily guarded Presidential secretariat and residence on July 9, to unseat its most powerful politician, is still playing on loop in everyone’s mind.
It was less than three years ago, in November 2019, that the former soldier rose to Sri Lanka’s highest office. He secured an impressive election win, promising national security, splendour, and prosperity. Last weekend, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled his mansion, fearing for his life, and later, desperately sought refuge in two other island countries, before he resigned mid-term.
The tale of his mighty fall, decidedly more pacey and dramatic than his giddy political ascent, had an unlikely protagonist — the ‘Janatha Aragalaya’ (Sinhala term for People’s Struggle).
In deposing the leader, known for his ruthlessness and repressive streak, the Aragalaya did the unthinkable. It wrote his political obituary. Something that the country’s weak political opposition or critical civil society organisations did not dream of.
The citizens’ rebellion against Mr. Gotabaya exposed the entire Rajapaksa clan’s insatiable thirst for power, and apparent disregard for human life and dignity — something the Tamil and Muslim minorities knew for long. The Aragalaya revealed both, the fragility of power, and the power of protest, as citizens underwent the country’s worst economic crisis post-Independence.
The financial crash has radically altered their existential realities, and daily life as they know it. The poor could not afford milk powder for their children. The rich could not find petrol for their cars. They all had to contend with long power cuts. “If we want to cook at home, there is no gas. If we try to get out of the house, there is no petrol. If we just stay at home, there are no lights as well,” as a chant that later evolved in the protest movement put it.
Carefully choreographed images of Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe hovering solicitously over injured soldiers in the Army hospital on Friday following clashes with protestors on the road to Parliament, is telling at several levels.
Flagrant disregard of constitutional niceties
Widely televised as his first act in office, this followed the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s grossly mis-named ‘Terminator’ President, formally announced by a visibly quaking if not perspiring Speaker. That came after hours of breathless anticipation, when a mercilessly mocked and pilloried President sent in his resignation letter upon fleeing the country’s shores and arriving surreptitiously on foreign soil. That was more in the style of a craven coward rather than a man once feted as a war hero, let it be said plainly.
But to return to his chosen ‘successor,’ there is particular symbolism implicit in his (far from fortuitous) visit to inquire about the well being of bandaged soldiers, some of whom were young themselves and had been ruthlessly beaten up as much as protestors were also attacked and injured.
These clashes occurred in the backdrop of needlessly provocative signalling to the inflamed public by senior leaders of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), to surround Parliament and stop the ‘deal-making.’
Beleaguered former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa became the first president of Sri Lanka to be forced out of office mid-term as well as flee the country after facing months of protests by the public that finally resulted in thousands storming into the President’s House, Presidential Secretariat, and Temple Trees on 9 July.
Rajapaksa also set more records by making his flight to Singapore from the Maldives become the most-tracked flight, while the people in Sri Lanka continued to wait in anticipation for his resignation letter, which kept getting delayed along with delays in his flight plans.
The resignation letter was first due on Wednesday (13). However, even by Thursday (14) morning, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena’s office had not received it. The delay in reaching his final destination was attributed to the delay in Rajapaksa submitting his resignation letter, as his official passport was required for safe passage to his final destination.
The letter was finally e-mailed to the Speaker’s Office by Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Singapore about an hour after Rajapaksa and his group arrived in Singapore. However, Speaker Abeywardena noted the legal issue in accepting this as Rajapaksa’s resignation letter since he required the original letter with his original signature. The Sri Lankan mission was informed to immediately dispatch the original letter through an embassy courier. The Speaker meanwhile sought the opinion of the Attorney General and Chief Justice on the matter.
However, Speaker Abeywardena on Friday (15) announced Rajapaksa’s resignation and Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe was officially sworn in as Acting President afterwards.
Interestingly, it was the former Maldivian President and incumbent Speaker, Mohomad Nasheed who tweeted on Thursday (14) saying Rajapaksa has resigned. “President GR has resigned. I hope Sri Lanka can now move forward. I believe the President would not have resigned if he were still in Sri Lanka, and fearful of losing his life. I commend the thoughtful actions of the Govt. of Maldives. My best wishes to the people of Sri Lanka,” he tweeted.
However, the Opposition in the Maldivian Parliament were displeased with the Maldivian Government’s decision to accept Rajapaksa into the country. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Opposition MP Dunya Maumoon stated that a motion would be presented to the Maldivian Parliament by the Opposition seeking an explanation from the Government about its decision.
Newly appointed Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday reiterated that he will protect the Constitution and will not allow any group to destroy democracy in Parliament.
“We are obliged to uphold democracy. I am bound to protect the Constitution. I will never allow anything unconstitutional to take place in our country. I am not working outside the Constitution,” Wickremesinghe said during an address to the nation soon after assuming office.
He also urged all political parties to set aside differences and come together for the sake of the country.
He told politicians to put aside their personal ambitions and put the needs of the country first. “Think about protecting the country rather than protecting individuals,” he added.
In his address Wickremesinghe also announced that he will fast track the full reimplementation of the 19th Amendment. He declared that the use of the word ‘His Excellency’ to introduce the President is officially prohibited and the presidential flag will be abolished.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the Acting President before Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya yesterday shortly after the official announcement of the resignation of incumbent Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The six-times Premier Wickremesinghe will function in his interim post till 20 July when MPs will vote to elect a successor to Rajapaksa to serve remainder of the latter’s term.
Parliament will meet today when the Secretary General of Parliament Dhammika Dassanayake will announce to the House that there is a vacancy in the office of President and nomination will be accepted on 19 July following which a vote by secret ballot will be taken on 20 July. Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena last morning formally announced that he had received the letter of resignation from Rajapaksa and explained the process which will be followed to elect a new President.
Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has officially resigned, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena announced Friday morning, ending days of uncertainty since the widely despised leader fled the island, dislodged by monumental public protests over a grave economic crisis.
Mr. Gotabaya, currently in Singapore, had sent his resignation letter by email on Thursday, but the Speaker’s office said its authenticity and legality had to be verified before it could be accepted. Tens of thousands of demonstrators stormed the President’s office and home last weekend, forcing the President to flee for his life, first to the Maldives and later to Singapore.
The popular uprising against the Rajapaksa regime started with the demand for the resignation of President Rajapaksa and the then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. Mahinda Rajapaksa to his credit saw the writing on the wall and quit, but Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not. The President appointed MP Ranil Wickremesinghe who entered Parliament through the nominated list to fill the vacancy caused by Mahinda Rajapaksa’s resignation, inviting the people’s ire against Ranil Wickremesinghe as well.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa
The people took to the streets on 9 July demanding the resignation of both Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe storming the President’s House and the Presidential Secretariat. Gotabaya Rajapaksa went into hiding.
According to a BBC report of Monday 11 July, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office said in a statement it had been informed by Mr Rajapaksa that he would step down on Wednesday 13 July. The Speaker told the BBC on Monday 11 July that the President had left Sri Lanka and was in a nearby country and that the latter would submit his resignation on 13 July. The Speaker later retracted his statement made to the BBC that the President had left the island.
In the meantime, as was reported, the party leaders met to reach agreement on finding a replacement for Gotabaya Rajapaksa whose resignation was expected on 13 July. Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not resign on 13 July as he had promised. On that day, the Speaker made an announcement that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had left to a nearby country and that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, acting under Art 37(1) of the Constitution, had appointed the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to act for him.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced out of office by waves of public protests, sent in his registration letter from Singapore yesterday bringing to an end nearly three years of rudderless and chaotic rule.
The President, who fled the country on Wednesday, emailed his resignation letter via the Sri Lanka High Commission in Singapore last night to Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena. Rajapaksa did so after arriving in Singapore via a Saudi Air flight from the Maldives where he spent a day after being flown in by an Air Force military plane in the early hours of Wednesday.
Rajapaksa was allowed to enter Singapore on the basis of a private visit and has not been granted asylum, the city-State said, after the leader arrived from the Maldives.
Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Thursday sent his resignation letter by email from Singapore, the Parliamentary Speaker’s office said, deferring an official announcement to Friday in order to verify the “authenticity and legality” of the document.
The development came a day after Mr. Gotabaya, who rose to power in 2019 on a thumping election win, fled the country and sought refuge on two other islands, as mass anti-government protests rapidly escalated last weekend. Early on Wednesday, he was flown to the Maldives by a Sri Lankan military aircraft. He reached Singapore on Thursday evening, the country’s Foreign Ministry confirmed.
Mr. Gotabaya was allowed entry into Singapore “on a private visit”, the city-state’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “He has not asked for asylum and neither has he been granted any asylum,” the Ministry said.
Parliament will not be convened on Friday as was announced, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena’s office said, owing to the delay in the receipt of the President’s resignation letter.
Once accepted, Mr. Gotabaya’s resignation would signal a resounding victory to the citizen’s protests spanning months, demanding “Gota go home”, taking responsibility for the country’s worst economic downturn since Independence in 1948. The powerful leader was forced to flee and quit, after enraged protesters stormed his office and home on Saturday, as a deepening crisis left citizens scrambling for essentials, amid acute shortages and hyperinflation.
A Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from Maldives to Singapore believed to be carrying Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the world’s most-tracked flight on Thursday (July 14), underscoring massive global interest in the troubled island nation’s political affairs.
Saudia flight 788 from Male was being tracked by almost 5,000 users as of 7.43am GMT (3.43pm Singapore time), according to data from Flightradar24.com, more than three times the number of people tracking a French Air Force plane flying in Europe.
Rajapaksa is taking a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane to Singapore and then Saudi Arabia, the Associated Press reported earlier Thursday, citing a Maldivian official it didn’t name.
Sri Lanka was pushed into a political impasse yesterday with the much-anticipated resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa not materialising and instead Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed Acting President, setting off a fresh wave of protests which continued late into last night.
Wickremesinghe’s appointment as Acting President was confirmed last night by way of an Extraordinary Gazette under the President’s name which said that as he is unable to exercise, perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions of the Office of the President by reason of his absence from Sri Lanka, he appoints Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, with effect from 13 July, to be in charge during his period of absence from Sri Lanka.
The Gazette notification came hours after Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena announced that the President had formed him of his decision to appoint Wickremesinghe to act in place and would send his letter of resignation by the end of the day.
However, there was no sign of the President’s letter by late last night.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the island and reached the nearby Maldives in the early hours of Wednesday, ahead of his promised resignation, days after enraged protesters overran his office and residence in a protest sparked by a devastating economic crisis.
However, a top official in Maldives, who asked not to be named, citing “sensitivity” of the embattled leader’s arrival, told The Hindu that Mr. Gotabaya would “only transit” the country. Asked where the Sri Lankan leader was headed next, the source declined comment. Mr. Gotabaya’s final destination remains unclear.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the island and took refuge in the Maldives early on Wednesday, ahead of his promised resignation, appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting President, the island’s Parliamentary Speaker said.
The announcement came even as enraged protesters overran the Premier’s office in Colombo, in the midst of persisting agitations against the leader, now as unpopular as the President who appointed him two months ago, amid political turbulence in the wake of a daunting economic crisis.
“We must end this fascist threat to democracy. We can’t allow the destruction of state property. The President’s office, the president’s secretariat and the Prime Minister’s official residence must be returned to proper custody. I have ordered military commanders and the police chief to do what is necessary to restore order,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said in a televised address, his first to the nation after being appointed acting President.
“London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.”
– Nursery Rhyme
When Basil Rohana Rajapaksa was in a rn in as Finance Minister by his brother President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July 2021, the appointment grabbed the attention of the world’s influential media. It was seen as an illustrative example of a single family enjoying a monopoly of political power in a democratic country. “In Sri Lanka , the Government Looks Increasingly like a Family Firm” was the heading of the article in the prestigious “New York Times”. An article in the much-respected “The Hindu” had the heading “The Rajapaksas | Four brothers in one government”.
Is the Medamulana “House of Rajapaksa” Falling Down, Falling Down?
It was at one time quite common for members of a single or extended family to dominate Governments in many Kingdoms in the middle-east or Brunei. The practice also prevailed in some African and Latin American dictatorships. There have been many instances of politics being a family business in India or even other countries in South Asia too.
Amid the emergence of “fascist” forces attempting to prevent a peaceful and democratic transition of power, the Armed Forces and Police have been instructed to restore normalcy, alongside the declaration of a State of Emergency and curfew to assist these efforts, Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe said, issuing a video statement a short while ago.
Recalling the chain of events that led to this decision, Wickremesinghe said that party leaders had met on Monday afternoon to discuss the transition of power following the President’s resignation and a collective decision had been taken to elect a new president next week, while providing adequate security for Members of Parliament in the meantime.
“I gave an undertaking that I will step down as the PM to create an all-party government. We had planned to meet on Friday to discuss the matter again. In the meantime, some ambitious individuals who wanted to run for the post of president began discussing with other members of Parliament to gather support for their election. This was the kind of democratic climate that was in the country until yesterday,” he said.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in his first appearance since a mob burnt down his private residence said he would safeguard the Constitution
“A government must act according to the Constitution. No one can go beyond it and force or dictate Parliament from outside on how it should act. I am here to safeguard the Constitution and listen to the people,” Wickremesinghe said in a recorded address.
Wickremesinghe said he had accepted the post of Prime Minister at the time the economy was in disarray and had worked to stabilise the situation since taking office.
“I understand the hardships of the people, and I have apologised for that,” he said in the statement. The Prime Minister also spoke on the circumstances that led to the mob attack on his residence.
(The writer is an entrepreneur and investor in the food and beverage industry)
The jubilation on the ground is almost palpable.
It seems that the declared goal of the #Aragalaya, which was #GoHomeGota, has achieved its purpose of forcibly ousting a President, who was duly elected by the people of this country with a massive majority less than three years ago.
They have also forcibly and illegally occupied the Official Residences of the President and the Prime Minister, the Presidential Secretariat. Some elements from amongst this rampaging mob have set fire to the ancestral private residence of the Prime Minister and reduced it to ashes.
I’ve heard people comparing the events that took place in Sri Lanka on 9 July that led to the incumbent president’s resignation, to the Russian and French revolutions in distant history or the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi in more recent times.
However, I don’t think many people who make those comparisons and rush to celebrate or justify these events have taken into consideration that this is not some tinpot dictatorship or a monarchy that has been toppled by a popular uprising of oppressed people.
The unimaginable and unprecedented sufferings caused to the people of this country due to shortages of fuel, cooking gas, essential medicines and hyperinflation making even the most basic food items’ prices skyrocketing beyond the reach of the majority of the people is an undeniable fact. So is the fact that these issues, while having been a result of a culmination of contributory factors over the last 74 years since independence, have been exacerbated due to the poor economic management policies of the incumbent President and his Government.
People of this country had surely come to a point of saying “enough is enough” and were rejecting the whole political system of the country.
The Speaker of Parliament announced to the nation on Saturday night that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had informed him that he would be resigning from office on Wednesday 13 July. Following a meeting with party leaders held earlier that day at his official residence, the following course of action was announced:
a) The President and the Prime Minister will both resign on Wednesday 13 July.
b) The Parliament will elect one of its members as the new President.
c) The Speaker will serve as Acting President until the new President assumes office.
d) An All-Party Government will be formed under a new Prime Minister.
This proposed course of action could lead to serious detrimental consequences in the governance of the country at this critical stage in the lives of its people.
Sri Lanka’s embattled President flew out of his country early on Wednesday, in a probable prelude to his resignation after months of widespread protests over the island nation’s worst-ever economic crisis.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa had promised during the weekend to resign on Wednesday and clear the way for a “peaceful transition of power”, after fleeing his official residence in Colombo just before tens of thousands of protesters overran it.
As President, Mr. Rajapaksa enjoys immunity from arrest, and he is believed to have wanted to go abroad before stepping down to avoid the possibility of being detained.
At least 10 people were injured during a clash yesterday (12) in the premises of the Prime Minister’s official residence, the Temple Trees, which was taken over by the people during the massive public protests on 9 July.
When contacted by The Morning, a person who was near the Temple Trees premises mentioned that the conflict is believed to have arisen due to a long-running conversation between two groups regarding the food prepared at the premises to be distributed to the visiting crowd.
It was also reported that the clash took place between a group of supporters of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka and another group of supporters of the National People’s Power (NPP) led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), both of which are engaged in the ongoing struggle.
The Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has made a failed attempt to flee the country as airport staff stood in his way and forced him to beat a humiliating retreat.
Rajapaksa, who is due to officially resign on Wednesday after months of demonstrations calling for him to step down, was reportedly trying to escape to Dubai on Monday night.
Officials said immigration staff prevented the president from going to the VIP area of the airport to stamp his passport and he would not go through the ordinary queues for fear of being mobbed by the public.
As a result, Rajapaksa reportedly missed four flights to the United Arab Emirates, and he, his wife and a dozen other family members and close aides spent the night at a nearby military base.
The United States rejected Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s recent request for a visa, The Hindu learns from a top official, amid growing speculation over the besieged leader’s “attempts to flee” the country after promising to quit office.
Mr. Gotabaya, formerly a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and the U.S., gave up his American citizenship ahead of the 2019 elections because of a law that barred foreign nationals from running for the presidency. He won the election with a thumping majority but became, arguably, the country’s most unpopular leader mid-term, amid a severe economic meltdown that is stifling citizens.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday signed his resignation letter, dated for July 13 and the Speaker of Parliament will publicly announce it to the nation tomorrow, the Daily Mirror learns.
The resignation letter of the President was signed and handed over to a senior government official who will hand it over to the Parliament Speaker.
Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena who has been informed of the letter will then make a public announcement tomorrow ending Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency.
Parliamentarians will vote to elect a new President by secret ballot on 20 July if no consensus is reached on a single candidate to take over the Presidency after the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Party leaders who met yesterday agreed to call for nominations for the post of President on 19 July and take a vote the following day.
Parliament will convene on Friday where an announcement will be made that there is a vacancy for the Presidency in keeping with the provisions of the Constitution and the Presidential Elections (Special Provisions) Act No. 2 of 1981.
It will be the second time since the introduction of the Executive Presidency in 1978 that Parliament will be tasked with electing a President.
Sri Lanka on Monday was rife with speculation over President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s whereabouts, and uncertainty over the island’s political future, two days after citizens mounted massive resistance against the two leaders over an unprecedented economic crisis.
President Gotabaya, who has promised to resign on July 13, was on Monday flown to an airbase near the main international airport in Katunayake, near Colombo, AFP reported. When The Hindu contacted spokespersons of the island’s Civil Aviation Authority and the Air Force, both said they were unaware of such a development.
Saturday the 9th of July was a moment of truth for our people. In coming together to Colombo in an unmistakable show of force, Sri Lankans brought to life the words of Albert Einstein that “in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.”
Sri Lanka has never faced a crisis of this magnitude, but I have no doubt that if our people can unite and remain singularly focused on the goal of saving our country, together, we will prevail. The whole country just came together to make clear that enough is enough. We have spoken with one voice against nepotism, graft, political witch hunts, ethnonationalism and brazen administrative incompetence.
Now it is time for professionals, policy makers and political leaders to do their part. This is not a time for vengeance or more violence. There should have been none in the first place. It is a time for the opposition to unite and do its duty, to send a message to the world that the Sri Lanka of tomorrow is a new Sri Lanka, one that is united, and ready to regroup and rebuild.
The image of a corrupt, ethnically divided, bankrupt nation at the mercy of strongmen and militarized rule must give way to a new brand for a pluralist, united nation on the path to recovery and prosperity. From now on, the institutions that form the pillars of order and justice must know that they cannot get away with blindly following illegal orders.
The vast majority of our people have not taken to the streets looking for perks, political patronage or other personal benefits. They are fighting to save our country and are doing that duty to give future generations of Sri Lankans a chance at a better life. The government has failed to protect its people and has failed to honour their oath to the people and the Constitution. The public service, especially the military, prosecutors and police, must not be the next to fail.
Never again can we tolerate an IGP, an Attorney General, military commanders or any of their subordinates who justify illegality by saying they were “just following orders.” This is the only way that they can restore their credibility and win back the faith of our people that has been squandered over a generation of cronyism.
UNP Chairman Vajira Abeywardena says that the Prime Minister cannot resign as per the constitution in a situation like this.
Answering questions raised by reporters if the Prime Minister is going to step down, the former MP said that constitution needs to be followed and that there is no clause in the constitution to do so.
Political parties in Sri Lanka are scrambling to form an all-party government, a day after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe pledged to resign in the wake of a historic citizens’ protest.
Sri Lankans are living through a harrowing economic collapse, where anti-government protests persisted for three months over the government’s failure to address or arrest the long-simmering crisis
In a culmination of people’s agitations spanning months, massive crowds on Saturday thronged Colombo’s seafront, where anti-government protests persisted for three months over the government’s failure to arrest or address the long-simmering crisis.
Demonstrators stormed the Presidential palace, Secretariat, and the official residence of the Prime Minister, and occupied the country’s seats of power, in a rare display of public fury. Arsonists also torched Mr. Wickremesinghe’s private home.
The escalation of citizens’ anger pushed the top two leaders to agree to step down, although neither has formally handed in his resignation. Mr. Gotabaya has informed the Speaker that he would step down on July 13.
Three youths were arrested in connection to the fire at Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private residence at 5th Lane last Saturday (9) night and have been remanded until 20 July by the Fort Magistrate’s Court.
“Three people were arrested yesterday – one is 19 years old, the other 21 years, and the third 24 years,” Police Spokesperson Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) and Attorney-at-Law Nihal Thalduwa told The Morning yesterday (10).
SSP Thalduwa said that the three were arrested at the property of Wickremesinghe.
Eleven journalists attached to three media outlets, namely TV Derana, News First and Sky News, attacked by the Police while covering the protests in the country last Saturday (9).
The Police had attacked journalists near Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private residence in Colombo 7, and during the protest at Chatham Street.
Reporters and camera crew of Sri Lanka’s News First television network were taken to hospital after being beaten by Police in front of Wickremesinghe’s residence.
According to News First, eight of its journalists were assaulted, including staff reporter Sarasi Pieris, cameraman Varuna Sampath, U.D. Sindujan from the Tamil news division, and Janitha Mendis from the online news desk.
Sunday was nothing like Saturday near Colombo’s seafront.
It was much less crowded, but still teeming with people. They were curiously surveying the Presidential Secretariat and official residence, a day after outraged demonstrators captured and occupied the iconic colonial-era structures, in a stunning finale to a season of protests in crisis-hit Sri Lanka.
In their smiling faces, a sense of accomplishment appeared to have displaced anger as they walked through the sites of unbridled executive power that have now become symbols of their resistance to it. “I was here yesterday, too. The rally was historic. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see and be part of such a massive protest to dislodge our leaders,” said Masha Munaweera, a 34-year-old banker. She was back at the site, along with her mother. “She too wanted to see this change,” Ms. Munaweera said, cautiously adding: “I really hope they [President and PM] do resign. There is some concern they may try to hold on to power. Let’s see.”
The scepticism is widely shared among citizens who had hoped for change. All the same, they were keen to savour the moment, and partake in the new hope it has brought.
The presidential palace, until 48 hours ago, was a high-security area, with barricades keeping passers by an entire lane away. From not being able to get even a glimpse of the building, people were thronging its gates on Sunday, as its new occupants tried to regulate a very large and excited crowd.
While condemning the torching of the private residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Saturday (9), former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga said that there is no need for violence to oust a government that lacks the support of the people.
Making a special statement regarding the prevailing situation in the country, she said: “Violence will only cause chaos and you (those engaged in the struggle) will be seen as using the same methods and practices as the Government that you wish to change. The people have had enough of the violence, lies, and robbery of the Rajapaksa regime. That is why the people support this struggle and they do not wish them to be repeated.”
Dumbfounding constitutional pundits, the largely peaceful protestors in hundreds of thousands inspired by the three-month old ‘Aragalaya’ on Saturday forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to announce their resignations.
Defying shortage of fuel and public transport, anti-Rajapaksa people countrywide took to the street on Saturday and converged at GotaGoGama at Galle Face and Fort area and broke through barricades, withstood teargas and water cannon attacks and stormed the President’s House and Presidential Secretariat calling for his and interim-Government’s resignation over the failure to resolve the worst economic crisis in the country.
President Rajapaksa was not present in either of the locations and his whereabouts still remain a secret.
While condemning the attack on a group of journalists and the torching of the personal residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, National Movement for Social Justice Chairman Karu Jayasuriya called for those responsible to be brought before the law regardless of their status or standing.
He said in a statement that both these incidents are abhorrent and contemptible acts in the eyes of any civilised society.
“We are deeply shocked and saddened by two barbaric incidents that were reported during the massive citizen’s protests carried out yesterday for the sake of democracy and the freedom of the people,” he said.
As the spark lit by Sri Lanka’s youth flamed into incendiary nation-wide revolt on Saturday, this column is written even as citizens breach the gates of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence in Fort, swarm within its premises and shout their now famous rallying cry, ‘Gota, go home’ from its rooftops where once, not long ago, snipers guarded points of entry.
A sea of troops and police using tear gas together with live ammunition could not stop thousands streaming to Colombo, packed in trains wrapped with protest flags, perched on roofs of the few buses still running with precious stocks of fuel. Those who could not find transport simply walked to the capital or protested in their own towns, Kandy, Chilaw and Galle including on the ramparts of the 2nd Test cricket match being played between Sri Lanka and Australia.
In Colombo, the Galle Face Green and the President’s residence in Fort quickly became the focal points of anger as the security forces scattered in the face of the massive public swell which rendered the capital’s main avenues close to invisible from the air. Preceding events had showcased the desperation of the President and his toadies placed at the heads of the state defence apparatus. Even when faced with a complete breakdown of the State at all levels as schools, offices shut down due to the lack of fuel, the President and his Government still did not hesitate to resort to failed measures of repression.
This included the imposition of an (illegal) curfew that was soon lifted as public defiance became emboldened. Indeed, those crude attempts went so far as to warn the public about possible terrorist attacks. This warning was both deadly and ironic given complicity of state intelligence agents of the Rajapaksa Security State in the strikes on churches and hotels by Islamist jihadistsin 2019 as the Catholic Church publicly denounced. This time around, all attempts by the President’s strutting henchmen failed to restrain or frighten the public on Saturday, spectacularly so.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has decided to step down from office next Wednesday (July 13), Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena announced last night
“The President was agreeable with the decision. However, due to the need to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, the President informed me to convey to the country that he will step down from his post on Wednesday, July 13,” Mr Abeywardena said.
He said given the President’s decision, there was no need for further unrest and, appealed to everyone to remain calm and pave the way for a peaceful transfer of power for the sake of the country and its future.
The announcement from the Speaker last evening came as the whereabouts of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa were not known as a large contingent of protesters surged into the President’s House in Colombo Fort and simultaneously to the Presidential Secretariat and entered both premises. Many of them later swam in the Presidential swimming pool, used the kitchen to cook food and occupied both premises overnight.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will resign on July 13, the country’s Parliamentary Speaker said on Saturday night, hours after protesters stormed the Presidential Secretariat, official and private homes of Mr. Gotabaya and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in a show of striking public fury over the country’s worsening economic crisis.
Late on Saturday, an angry mob set Mr. Wickremesinghe’s private residence on fire, despite military security. The PM or his family was not at the residence at the time, his office said, adding there were no known casualties so far.
President Rajapaksa, according to top defence sources, left his official residence on Friday night “as a precaution”. “He is under the protection of the military at a safe location in the country,” a senior official, requesting anonymity, told The Hindu, while some media reports said he was evacuated by the Navy just hours before the incident.
Tens of thousands of citizens took out a massive rally on Saturday, as part of a fresh wave of protests in the island, reiterating their call for the President and Prime Minister to resign immediately, for failing to arrest the crushing economic downturn that has left citizens scrambling for essentials.
A mob stormed the private residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last night around 8 p.m. and set it ablaze.
A crowd of around 200 persons had been gathering outside the residence, located at 5th Lane, Colombo 3 since last evening demanding Mr Wickremesinghe step down as PM. Police had fired tear gas and water cannon at the protesters as they attempted to make their way towards the residence.
Police and Special Task Force (STF) personnel stationed outside the residence also attacked several journalists from Sirasa TV who were covering the incident, beating them on live television. A total of six journalists attached to the network were injured and hospitalised following the attack.
The game plan had always been to storm the President’s official residence. To do so, protesters marshalled by the Inter-University Students’ Federation (IUSF) needed to breach several layers of security, risking a maximum force response from heavily armed police and military guards.
But they advanced, undeterred by several rounds of teargas and firing of live ammunition into the air. The agreed time to break through the final barrier had been 2pm, to allow for the largest possible crowd. At the last gate, two demonstrators went rogue before the allotted hour and climbed into the premises. When a policeman was seen warding them off, the others stormed in.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had been evacuated. Once the protesters were in, the invasion took on the nature of a field trip. Groups stationed themselves in different locations, warning others not to cause damage. People took over the kitchen, making themselves tea and spooning rice and curry into plates before polishing it off.
Thousands of protesters continued to occupy the President’s House, the Presidential Secretariat and Temple Trees last night after breaking into them earlier in the day as they demanded the immediate resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Protesters also converged on Parliament and Premier Wickremesinghe’s private residence located at 5th Lane off Thurstan Road in Colombo 3.
Police fired water cannon and teargas last evening to disperse those gathered near the Premier’s private residence. Protesters demanding the immediate resignation of President Rajapaksa first broke into the President’s House in Fort after breaking through multiple security barricades. They later breached the security parameters of the Presidential Secretariat, outside which they had been protesting since April.
At least 55 people, including Samagi Jana Balawegaya Parliamentarian Suresh Vadivale, were injured in incidents around the Fort area where Police used tear gas to disperse protesters yesterday morning, hospital sources said.
The National Hospital’s Accident Service Coordinator, Pushpa R. Zoysa, said that among the injured were three civilians who had suffered gun shot injuries and they had undergone surgery.
After months of angry demands for Sri Lanka’s president to stand down, protesters laughed, took selfies and treated themselves to a swim as they suddenly found themselves inside his home.
The presidential palace in Colombo was overrun by hundreds of people on Saturday, capping months of public discontent over the island nation’s crippling economic crisis.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had fled just moments earlier, assisted by troops who fired into the air to clear his escape.
Once he had left, the mood inside the compound was festive, as the crowd set aside the frustrations of long-running food and fuel shortages, as well as a tense confrontation with security forces earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private residence on 5th Lane in Colombo has been set on fire by the protestors.
A group of protestors entered his house and set the place on fire after a tense situation erupted between the protestors and security forces on the ground.
Several journalists were also attacked by the security forces after which more protestors gathered in the area.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has assured that shortage of essential goods will be resolved within a few days as fresh supplies are on schedule.
“The objective of the Government is to overcome the existing economic challenges facing the country and to build a strong economy with new investments by giving priority to exports and agricultural economy,” President Media Office said in a statement.
“Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic situation faced by the whole world has led all countries to a severe economic crisis. The top richest countries in the world are looking for solutions to the current economic crisis. This situation is severely affected for an economy of a country like ours where there is no cash reserve,” it added.
A host of multi-religious and civil society leaders yesterday signed a six-point resolution calling on the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa-led Government to step down immediately.
Titled ‘Senkadagala Statement’, multi-religious and civil society leaders pledged their support to establish an all-party Government and to help Sri Lanka to seek international aid and provide relief to people suffering from the worst economic crisis in its history.
The statement includes six key demands including; the President should resign unconditionally, establish an interim Government comprising all parties, and present a definite timeframe for parliamentary and presidential elections by an all-party consensus Government.
“Vikram,Vikram” is the Mantra being chanted by many a film fan these days. The Tamil action thriller “Vikram” along with its dubbed versions in Hindi,Telugu,Malayalam and Kannada was released worldwide in over 5000 Screens on June 3. It has proved to be a box office blockbuster since then. Vikram is having a successful run in Sri Lankan theatres too. As of June 25th , Vikram had globally grossed over 409 Crore or 4090 million Indian rupees in ticket sales alone. It is expected to cross the 500 crore/5000 million mark before July 3. Besides Vikram has reportedly netted over 200 Crore or 2000 million through satellite, digital, audio and dubbing rights prior to its release. Apart from its commercial success, Vikram has also earned much critical acclaim.
The most positive feature of the film relates to its producer and lead actor Kamal Haasan known generally as Kamal. The success of Vikram marks the return of Kamal to the big screen in a big way and his re-entry into cinema from politics. As is well known, Kamal formed his own political party “Makkal Needhi Maiam” (MNM) in February 2018. Subseuently, neither Kamal nor his centrist party met with electoral success in polls.
The shift to politics from cinema took Kamal away from movie acting as politicking took up much of his time. His last two films were “Vishwaroopam -2 ” in 2018 and “Kadaaram Kondaan” in 2019. However Kamal Haasan did move to the small screen. In 2017 he became the host of the Tamil version of “Big Boss” on TV. He has been playing the titular character Big Boss in the highly successful reality show for the past five years.
Dilith Jayaweera can still recall the moment he realised Sri Lanka was hurtling, unstoppably, towards financial ruin.
It was around October 2021 and Jayaweera, a Sri Lankan media magnate and close friend of the Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had invited Basil Rajapaksa, the president’s younger brother, who was also the finance minister, to join him for dinner.
There was little love lost between Basil Rajapaksa and Jayaweera, who had long mistrusted each other. But nonetheless, as the pair ate in his sleek Colombo office, the media mogul had some urgent questions for the man responsible for Sri Lanka’s economy. Was the country heading for a terrible crash?
“Basil couldn’t answer even my basic questions,” recounted Jayaweera. “He was giving very lousy answers – that we’ll find money from here, from there, saying it would all be fine to pay our debts. I saw then he really didn’t understand the economy at all; that it was done, dusted, finished for us.”
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made a statement on talks with the International Monetary Fund and likely path of the country hit by a soft-pegging crisis on July 05.
The full statement is reproduced below:
Today, in front of this Assembly and the citizens of this country, I am ready to outline the roadmap that we are following which will revive the economy that has collapsed.
We were able to successfully proceed with the round of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.
Our country has held talks with the IMF on many occasions before. But this time the situation is different from all those previous occasions. In the past, we have held discussions as a developing country. In such a case, both parties have only to reach an agreement on the EFF or Extended Credit Facility. It is like moving along a straight line.
But now the situation is different. We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation than previous negotiations. Once a staff-level agreement is reached, this will be submitted to the IMF Board of Directors for approval. But due to the state of bankruptcy our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to them separately. Only when they are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement at the staff level. This is not a straight-forward process.
But we have been able to end the round of discussion effectively despite these difficulties. According to the IMF’s official announcement, “Positive and productive discussions were held on supportive economic policies and reforms. Significant progress was achieved.”
Ranil Wickremesinghe, the newly appointed prime minister of crisis-hit Sri Lanka, has said he is confident he can turn the economy around – but cautioned it will take 18 months before stability returns.
“The year 2023 is going to be difficult, but by 2024 things should pick up,” Wickremesinghe told Al Jazeera last week [Thursday] in a wide-ranging interview at his official residence in the capital, Colombo.
The 73-year-old leader, who in May became prime minister for the sixth time, said that he took up the job under extraordinary circumstances.
“We had nearly two days without a government; things were getting out of hand,” he said, recalling the mass protests over shortages of fuel and electricity that forced Mahinda Rajapaksa, his predecessor and the brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to resign.
“I thought ‘the situation is bad, it’s your country, so you can’t be wondering whether you are going to succeed or not. You take it over and work to succeed,’” said Wickremesinghe, who met the president at the request of some MPs from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party.
The Sri Lankan President on Wednesday reached out to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, seeking urgent credit for fuel imports for the crisis-hit island nation, even as Colombo negotiates a support package with the Washington-headquartered International Monetary Fund.
“Had a very productive telecon with the #Russia President, Vladimir Putin. While thanking him for all the support extended by his govt to overcome the challenges of the past, I requested an offer of credit support to import fuel to #lka in defeating the current econ challenges,” Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in a tweet.
Sri Lanka ran out of fuel last week, and the government said it was suspending fuel sales for two weeks to cope with the situation. An aide of the Prime Minister has indicated that supplies will likely arrive by July 22, while hundreds wait for days together in long queues to petrol stations. Colombo earlier dispatched its Ministers to Qatar and Russia to seek help. Scrambling for dollars for essential imports, the government is counting on credit lines from one of its bilateral partners. However, after Colombo opted for a pre-emptive sovereign default in April this year, global oil firms are less forthcoming with credit.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday that political reforms must take place parallel to the economic program so that the role of Parliament is strengthened.
“The institution that must be strengthened is the Parliament, while the Government institutions must be free from politicisation. The 22nd Amendment is one step towards achieving this. Strengthening parliamentary sectoral committees is another step,” the Prime Minister said in Parliament.
He said that the sectoral committee system that was in place in Parliament before independence should be re-introduced so that the entire Parliament contributes to policy formulation and governance, regardless of party or opposition.
“The political culture that has developed so far in our country is undergoing a complete change. Nowadays we divide into parties during elections. Even after coming to the Parliament, the divisions remain and grow.
“The Government alone brings orders, formulating policies. The State is in control. The Opposition focuses on opposing the Government. The Opposition has no chance of coming together to formulate policies related to governance in the country,” he said.
Wickremesinghe said that under this committee system, the Government will have to move away from individual opinion and reach a common consensus while the Opposition cannot limit itself to criticism but must contribute to finding solutions.
The worsening economic crisis has forced the Central Bank to further tighten the monetary policy, to curtail the soaring inflation to ensure macroeconomic stability.
The Monetary Board at its meeting on Wednesday has decided to increase the Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) and the Standing Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) of the Central Bank by 100 basis points to 14.50% and 15.50% respectively with immediate effect.
The latest hike comes three months after the tightest stance in April when policy rates were increased by 7%. “The inflation is running over 50% and as per our projections, it might even go close to 70%.”
“From the Central Bank’s point of view, the major concern here is to address inflation and expectations going forward. We hope to bring it down to a reasonable level as soon as possible,” Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe told journalists yesterday.
With the higher-than-expected escalation of headline inflation recently and the increased persistence of high inflation in the period ahead, the Board was of the view that a further monetary policy tightening would be necessary to contain any build-up of adverse inflation expectations.
Business leader turned Investment Promotion Minister Dhammika Perera yesterday did not mince his words but bluntly called for the resignation of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as Finance Minister alleging that the latter is not sincere in tackling the burning problem of the country – boosting foreign reserves and currency.
Dhammika’s broadside on the veteran politician and six times Premier was during a briefing of some of the new initiatives taken by former’s Ministry’s Department of Immigration and Emigration yesterday.
Perera said: “From today I am also starting my struggle (Aragalaya) because in my first seven days in the Government, I saw what is really happening.
As Finance Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is playing a political game and that must be stopped. He is stopping all dollars-generating projects. He has no plans to enhance the cash flow of the country. He has no plans to ensure people have three meals. No plans to bring in more dollars.”
The Cabinet greenlighted a proposal to streamline the country’s casino industry in order to recover tax dues owed by casino operators and to bring in legislative amendments to give effect to proposed tax increases.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies on Monday sought the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers to issue orders under the Casino Business (Regulation) Act No. 17 of 2010 with the intention of regularising such industries and recovering levies due for the government, and to take measures to introduce appropriate amendments to the Betting and Gamin Levy Act No. 40 of 1988. Under provisions imposed by the Casino Business (Regulation)
Several fundamental rights petitions challenging the Presidential pardon given to ex-soldier Sunil Ratnayake were today fixed for support by the Supreme Court.
Former army staff sergeant R.M. Sunil Ratnayake who was convicted and sentenced to death for the Mirusuvil murder case in 2000 had been released after he received Presidential Clemency.
Supreme Court three-judge-bench comprising Chief Justice, L.T.B. Dehideniya and Justice Yasantha Kodagoda fixed the petition for support on August 4.
Several petitioners including the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and its Executive Director Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu had filed these petitions naming Commissioner General of Prisons, the Minister of Justice, the Secretary to the President and the National Authority for the Protection of Victims of Crimes and Witnesses as respondents.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday ordered an immediate investigation into the allegation of bribery in a transaction between the Aviation Ministry and a Japanese company.
President’s Media said Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva will step down temporarily from the position of Minister of Ports, Shipping and Aviation Services on the instructions of the President until the investigations are concluded.
Former MP Hirunika Premachandra and 11 others, who were arrested by police while protesting in front of the President’s House in Colombo Fort yesterday were released subsequently on police bail.
The Presidential Security Division arrested a group including Premachandra who was protesting near the entrance gate of the President’s House under the charge of blocking the road. A group of women along with her had started this protest demanding they want to meet President Rajapaksa whom they alleged is the cause for the country’s worst crisis since independence.
intelligence” – Camus (Lyrical and Critical Essays)
World War I began with fanfare. Leaders of all combatant nations predicted that their victorious troops will be home for Christmas. People believed and cheered. Only a few understood that the war would ruin losers and winners. “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime,” British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey lamented.
In Sri Lanka, most of the lamps are already cold, snuffed out by the economic idiocy of the Rajapaksas. Only a few cling to a flickering life. They too might go out soon, as the remaining air is sucked in by a president determined to cling to power at whatever cost and a suffering people bereft of rational leaders or sane choices.
There was always more than an echo of Narcissus in Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a man enamoured of his own performance. As Sri Lanka unravels strand by strand and Lankans swing from fury to despair and back, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s conviction of his own infallibility remains rock-solid. He is the unmoving mover of his own story. Sanguine in his cluelessness he issues gazettes, writes letters to world leaders, instructs officials, and scatters promises. His robe of leader-extraordinaire is in tatters. Every citizen might yell about the emperor’s unclothed state, but the emperor doesn’t hear, can never hear.
The revitalised Aragalaya has given the president time till 9 July to go home. He won’t. Had Sri Lanka remained a parliamentary democracy, a no-confidence motion would have sufficed. Thanks to the presidential system, J.R. Jayewardene’s deadliest legacy, there’s no constitutional lever to quickly dislodge even the most unsound president.
A comprehensive 21st Amendment could have defanged the presidency rendering Gotabaya Rajapaksa relatively harmless. That opportunity was lost because neither PM Wickremesinghe nor the Opposition could transcend the rut of narrow self-interest. The SJB and the JVP seem incapable of agreeing on anything beyond sending Gota and Ranil home. Whatever happens, or doesn’t happen on 9 July, the political gridlock will continue.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who participated in the Parliamentary session last morning (5) in his first public appearance outside the President’s House in three months, left Parliament, after his presence in the House was protested against by the Opposition led by the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).
The Parliamentary session commenced yesterday at around 10 a.m. and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made a special statement on the progress of the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the current economic situation of the country.
While the Premier was making the statement, the President arrived in Parliament at around 10.30 a.m. Arriving at the Parliament complex, he was received by a group of MPs representing the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, including Leader of the House and Minister of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils, and Local Government Dinesh Gunawardena.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament yesterday that the ongoing talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not a straightforward process, but initial discussions have ended effectively despite many difficulties.
In a statement to the House in which he outlined the roadmap to revive the economy, Wickremesinghe said unlike in the past, Sri Lanka is now participating in the negotiations with the IMF as a bankrupt country and therefore have to face a more difficult and complicated situation than in previous negotiations.
“Our country has held talks with the IMF on many occasions before. But this time the situation is different from all those previous occasions. In the past, we have held discussions as a developing country. But now the situation is different. We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country,” the Prime Minister said.
First round of discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been a success but the assistance depends on the debt restructuring program which Sri Lanka has to come up with, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament.
Making a special statement in the House Mr. Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka will hand over a debt restructuring program report to IMF in August this year. “The expert companies which we have hired are in the process of preparing a debt restructuring program and we will hand over the report on it to IMF in August this year,” the Prime Minister said.
“Our country has held talks with the IMF on many occasions before. But this time the situation is different from all those previous occasions. In the past, we have held discussions as a developing country. In such a case, both parties have only to reach an agreement on the EFF or Extended Credit Facility. It is like moving along a straight line.However now the situation is different. We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country.
Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation than previous negotiations. Once a staff-level agreement is reached, this will be submitted to the IMF Board of Directors for approval. But due to the state of bankruptcy our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to them separately. Only when they are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement at the staff level. This is not a straight-forward process. We have been able to end the round of discussion effectively despite these difficulties.
Sprinter Yupun Abeykoon has become the first man in South Asia to break the 10-seconds barrier as he won a 100 metres race at a competition in Europe with a stunning feat of 9.96 seconds yesterday.
Competing in Resisprint International, a meet in Switzerland, the Italy-based sprinter clocked 10.11 seconds in the heats before breaking the 10 seconds barrier in the final.
The long-awaited 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill (22A) of the Gotabaya-Wickremesinghe Government (or, should we say, the SLPP Government in which UNPer Ranil Wickremesinghe is Prime Minister?) was published in the Gazette on 29 June 2022. This means it could be placed on the Order Paper of Parliament seven days after that. Citizens and citizens’ organisations would be able to challenge the Bill in the Supreme Court within seven days of the Bill being so placed. As this is a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority in Parliament, the only question that can be raised before the Court is whether the People must approve it at a Referendum.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has just finished the first half of his term. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution (20A) that he and the SLPP said was essential to develop the country by strengthening the Presidency is just 20 months old. What happened under his watch need not be recounted. The attack on the Aragalaya by SLPP goons, obviously with the blessings of highly placed leaders, led to the resignation of Premier Mahinda Rajapaksa. The President, with all his powers, could neither stop the attacks nor the violence that ensued all over the country. It was then that the beleaguered President offered to go back to the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and even hinted that he was amenable to the Parliament deciding to abolish the Presidential form of government, two of the main demands of the Aragalaya and also of the majority of the people.
A survey conducted by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) in April 2022 revealed that 74% of the respondents wished for the complete abolition of the Executive Presidency compared to 50.3% in October-November 2021. The results of the “Mood of the Nation” poll conducted by Verité Research show that the Government’s approval rating for June 2022 is a mere 3%.
The SLPP and President Gotabaya then pulled a masterstroke by inviting the UNP’s lone MP, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to be Prime Minister. This was a setback to the Aragalaya, with many of its upper and middle-class supporters thinking that Wickremesinghe had a magic wand to cure the country of the economic ills caused by the Rajapaksas. Such hopes are receding fast, but the country-wide is yet to see the Aragalaya picking up again, although that will be only a matter of time.
That the Government is making good use of the sense of hopelessness amongst the people is clear from the contents of 22A. It is nowhere near what was promised.
( Text of Editorial appearing in the “Daily Financial Times” of July 5th 2022 under the Heading “Both the President and the Presidency must go”)
Last week the Cabinet of Ministers approved and later gazetted the proposed amendment to the Constitution, which if approved would be the 21st Amendment. The demand for change in the governance structure in Sri Lanka is no longer a demand only of the general public of the country but a prerequisite for many of the international partners who would be assisting the country to come out of its current economic situation.
However, the minimalistic approach of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa-Ranil Wickremesinghe Government to present a diluted amendment that retains both the executive presidency as an institution and the current incumbent in office until the end of his term would not suffice to address the current crisis.
An argument against the abolition of the executive presidency is that the presidency leads to stability. Proponents of the presidency say that in view of the political and economic challenges faced by a developing country such as Sri Lanka, a strong government freed from the whims and fancies of the legislators and which can take tough, unpopular decisions that are in the long-term interest of the country is needed.
The fact that President Rajapaksa has failed in governance, despite having overwhelming powers bestowed to him through the 20th Amendment (20A) and enjoying a two-thirds majority in Parliament, is testament to the abysmal failure of the institution of executive presidency.
Samagi Jana Balawegaya Leader Sajith Premadasa and Sri Lanka Freedom Party Leader and former President Maithripala Sirisena met with several Opposition political party leaders as well as civil rights activists yesterday in a fresh effort to moot a collective program to get the country out of the current crisis.
The meeting was organised on the theme “National Reforms and Progress” and is aimed at finding common ground on several issues to salvage the country and bring about long-term reforms.
Premadasa who addressed the meeting said that whatever form a Government takes, the economic issues of the people have to be addressed urgently and a solution acceptable to all people must be found first. “We are faced with a dollar and cents problem today. The basic human needs can only be met with the increase in our foreign reserves,” he said.
Return of Ranil : Remarkable Resilience of Premier Wickremesinghe. -Part Three
Let me rewind back to my boyhood when I first read the fable about the scorpion and frog which I believe is of Russian origin. The scorpion which cannot swim wanted to cross the river. So the scorpion begged the frog to carry him across. The frog refused saying the scorpion may sting while he was ferrying him across. The scorpion replies he would not do that because the frog will then die resulting in the drowning of the scorpion too. Therefore it was not in the best interests of the scorpion to sting the frog while going across the river.
🐸 🦂 📖
The frog thinks things through and finds the scorpion’s argument rational and logically sensible. So the frog accedes to the request and swims across the river with the scorpion on his back. Midway across the river, the scorpion whose sting is in the tail, strikes suddenly. The stung frog in a state of paralysis begins to drown. The scorpion dislodged from the frog’s back also is drowning. The dying frog is baffled as to why the scorpion has acted irrationally and doomed them both. “Why, why? asks the frog.The scorpion replies , “ I don’t know. I couldn’t resist the urge.It’s in my character.It is my nature”. And so both perished.
Sri Lanka has less than a day’s worth of fuel left, the Energy Minister said Sunday, with public transport grinding to a halt as the country’s economic crisis deepened.
Petrol and diesel queues snaked through the capital for kilometres, though most pumping stations have been without fuel for days.
Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera said petrol reserves in the country were about 4,000 tonnes, just below one day’s worth of consumption.
“The next petrol shipment is expected between the 22nd and 23rd (of July),” Wijesekera told reporters in Colombo.
(The author is a Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam)
The social and political uprising is currently stuck. President Gotabaya’s appointment of Ranil Wickremasinghe as Prime Minister (PM) has enabled the President to continue to stay in office, while shifting responsibility and pressure onto the new PM.
Meanwhile, the economic crisis is intensifying, as Sri Lanka has run out of money to pay for food, fuel and medicines. This economic crisis can either lead to a petering out of the protests – as day-to-day needs take precedence in people’s lives over protests – or it can lead to the rallying of protesters and more pressure on the government.
International financial institutions (IFI) and bilateral lenders have expressed willingness to help the government, but they are holding back. They believe the government is neither stable nor capable.
Indeed, depending on how you count it, this is the third or fourth government we have had in the past couple of months. With only one seat in parliament – his own – it is hard to see how the current Prime Minister can be anything other than a stopgap measure by the party of the President to cling to power.
Even if this government lasts, it would be too weak to carry out the stringent economic reforms that the IFIs are likely to impose on Sri Lanka.
When Ranil Wickremesinghe became Prime Minister a month or so ago, he warned that things would get worse before they get better. Mr Wickremesinghe has addressed the nation at least thrice since then, and on all three occasions he has reiterated this warning. To be fair, he is right: we will hit rock-bottom before we start climbing up.
In appointing Wickremesinghe as his Prime Minister, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took a gamble. The gamble worked for a month. Now, however, we are at a standstill. CPC sheds no longer pump fuel to private vehicles. Until late July, we will operate with less than 5,000 MT of petrol and 11,000 MT of diesel. The president may or may not have foreseen this, but for Wickremesinghe, the tightrope act just got a little tighter.
At the initial stages, his entry helped pacify the protests. Despite parading themselves as non-aligned, Gotagogama protesters had their own beliefs regarding the leadership of this country. When President Rajapaksa let his brother go and appointed a new Prime Minister, he ruptured the protests. Now, with a worsening fuel crisis, it is likely that what was ruptured will come back together again, stronger this time.
The Sri Lankan Navy on Sunday arrested 12 Indian fishermen near the coast of Point Pedro in Jaffna, on charges of fishing illegally in the island’s territorial waters. Their mechanised boat has been seized, Navy spokesman Captain Indika De Silva said.
The arrest comes weeks after the nearly two month-long fishing ban in Tamil Nadu— an annual practice to allow for breeding of fish— ended. Tamil Nadu fishermen have since resumed fishing.
In his address to the nation on 11 May, the President committed to “enact a Constitutional Amendment that would restore the substance of the 19th Amendment” (my translation from the video record, because this speech is missing from the President’s websites).
By this time, he had seen the steadfastness of the Aragalaya and the nationwide support they had. It is reasonable to assume that former Finance Minister Sabry had briefed him that there would be no immediate support from the IMF for the imports of fuel and other essentials necessary to keep the economy functioning and that it was difficult to obtain bridge financing from other sources.
The unconditional commitments made in that speech appear to have been intended to address these concerns, two days after the fiasco of the attack on GotaGoGama by the former Prime Minister’s followers and the subsequent dissolution of the Cabinet.
So now, almost six weeks after that address, the official text of the 22A has been made public. It reestablishes the Constitutional Council and allows for fresh appointments to be made to the Independent Commissions, giving the people some confidence that inquiries into bribery and corruption will be conducted properly and that the Election Commission will not include party loyalists.
Notwithstanding those ‘nava gilunath baan choon’ (lets make merry while the Titanic sinks) citizens obsessed with Sri Lanka being ‘thrashed’ by Australia in the Test series opener played in Galle, as the New Zealand Herald rather impolitely put it this Friday, there was a different and far more serious development happening alongside.
A sinister state agenda
This was when the police and the army, on orders from above prevented and in some cases, forcibly removed lawyers and citizens asking the President to ‘Go’ from the ramparts of the Galle Fort. Ostensibly this was to remove ‘distractions’ diverting the concentration of the players. That was, of course, a convenient excuse for a far more sinister state agenda, to prevent the right to peaceful protest.
Days later, lawyers of the Galle Bar filed a rights challenge at the Supreme Court alleging the infringement of their freedoms of speech, expression and right to movement (Articles 14 (1) (a) and (h)).
Amusingly enough, we seem to be now in the habit of piously quoting decisions of the late Justice MDH Fernando who retired prematurely from the Bench of the Supreme Court more than seventeen years ago.
Apropos the importance of the Jana Ghosha principle regarding the right to peaceful protest (Amaratunga v Sirimal and Others, 1993) which is fundamentally central to preventing state abuses.
That aside, this is also to point to an equally important judicial precedent in regard to safeguarding the right to movement (Thavaneethan v Commissioner of Elections and others,2003).
(Excerpted from the “Sunday Morning” Political Column “The Black Box” by “Capt.Vasaba)
The IMF team that was in Colombo met with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe on Monday (27 June) for another round of meetings.
During the meeting, the IMF team had expressed concerns over the delay in reaching an agreement with China on debt restructuring. The IMF has maintained that China’s agreement on debt restructuring was important since it would help Sri Lanka’s overall debt rescheduling programme.
The IMF team had also discussed some of its observations and proposals during the meeting. Some of the proposals put forward by the IMF team had been turned down by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, who had pointed out that the people would not be able to bear them given the crisis situation in the country.
One of the main proposals that had drawn the Prime Minister’s attention was increasing the country’s tax revenue by further reducing the taxable income threshold to a level that would cover a majority of low income earners. The IMF team had noted the need to include those earning Rs. 40,000 per month into the tax net. Wickremesinghe, it is learnt, immediately expressed concern, saying it could not be done as it would further increase the socio-economic crisis faced by the people.
(Excerpted from the “Sunday Morning” Political Column “The Black Box” by “Capt.Vasaba)
The Government continues to face pressure from certain sections in the Opposition as well as from within the Government to initiate a dialogue with Russia to gain access to fuel and fertiliser at cheaper rates.
The group of 10 (G-10) ruling alliance partners led by MPs Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila, and Vasudeva Nanayakkara are in the forefront of the campaign to seek Russian assistance. Several members within the Government have also started questioning why Sri Lanka has not officially approached Russia for assistance. The pro-Russia members have noted that even neighbouring India had managed to reach an agreement with Russia for cheaper fuel and Sri Lanka should also follow suit.
However, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe is of the belief that moving towards Russia could have an impact on reaching an agreement with the IMF, which the Government believes would help Sri Lanka secure the much-needed bridge financing.
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) yesterday filed a motion in the Supreme Court, asking the latter to take up on Monday for interim relief the Fundamental Rights (FR) petition lodged on behalf of the citizens over the continuous violation of the fundamental rights due to the ongoing shortages.
The Petitioners including BASL President Saliya Peiris PC and three of its office bearers moved the court to consider the case as a matter of extreme urgency and national importance and have this case listed for support for interim relief on 4 July.
The Petitioners also sought a permanent Bench of the SC be appointed to hear and determine this case, as there is a need for continuity in the proceedings due to the critical importance of the matters referred to in the Petition.
The Petitioners have cited 43 Respondents including the Prime Minister, Cabinet of Ministers and secretaries to various ministries.
A Fundamental Rights petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking redress for the violation of the rights by Police and Army personnel who broke up a peaceful protest at the Galle Fort during the Test match between Sri Lanka and Australia, and forcibly removed the protest placards.
The FR application was filed by two lawyers Amara Diwakara Liyanarachchi and Hewage Ajith Kumara.
The respondents in the case are Commanding Officer of Galle Fort Army Camp, the Army Commander, the Inspector General of Police, Galle Police Headquarters IP, the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Galle District, the Inspector General of Police, Public Security Minister Tiran Alas and the Secretary of the Ministry and the Attorney General.
The petitioners point out that on the 30 June they engaged in a peaceful protest by displaying placards in protest against the President and the actions of the current Government, and that the Army personnel entered the premises and forcibly removed their protest placards.
(Text of Message from David McKinnon the High Commissioner of Canada in Colombo, Sri Lanka , on the occasion of Canada Day – July 1, 2022)
Happy Canada Day! Today, Canadians celebrate together our country’s achievements and hopefully have some fun doing it. We also reflect on the challenges that we face as we look to build a better Canada.
Canada Day is typically celebrated informally, with a focus on family, friends, and community. This reflects Canadians’ inclusive sense of nationalism, enabling our diverse citizenry to integrate the various layers of their personal identities into an overarching sense of what it is to be Canadian, under the maple leaf.
While the acute phase of the pandemic is, thankfully, behind us, the world faces different and complex challenges that once again require us to work together in our response. Major crises with global consequences have emerged around the world, most notably the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In Sri Lanka, the economic crisis has been exacerbated by these external shocks, and it is wrenching to see the adversity ordinary Sri Lankans endure every day as a result. As we did during the pandemic and for nearly 70 years before that, Canadians have extended their support to Sri Lanka in these difficult times.
In collaboration with the World Health Organization, we are funding the procurement of essential medicines and supplies. Canada is also working with the World Food Program to purchase urgently needed rice stocks for the National School Meal Program. As the crisis deepens, we are looking how we can best respond to the recent flash appeals by the UN and the International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies.
The Gazetted draft of the 22 nd. Amendment (22A) of the Sri Lankan constitution, which will be presented to parliament in the coming week, is a compromise between the interests of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. It is also designed to maintain the stability needed to tide over the current economic crisis and to avoid a referendum.
If passed by parliament, by the required two-thirds majority, the draft 22A will enter the constitution as the 21 st.,Amendment (21A).
Constitutional Council and Independent Commissions
In a significant change, the draft 22A re-establishes the independent Constitutional Council (CC) to replace the Parliamentary Council of the 20 th.Amendment (20A). The CC will, in turn, appoint the Chairmen and members of the various Independent Commissions (ICs) which would make key appointments and oversee the work of sectors assigned to each.
The Independent Commissions are: the Elections Commission, Public Service Commission, Police Commission, Judicial Commission, Finance Commission, Bribery and Corruption Commission, Delimitation Commission, Human Rights Commission, Audit Service Commission and National Procurement Commission.
The CC comprises the parliament Speaker (who will be its chairperson), the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, one Member of Parliament (MP) appointed by the President, 5 MPs comprising one ruling party MP, one MP from the party of the Leader of the Opposition, three non-MPs appointed by the Speaker in consultation with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and approved by a majority of MPs in parliament, and one MP from a party other than the one represented by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
All appointments should reflect the pluralistic character of Sri Lankan society. Non-MPs should be persons of repute and integrity. CC members will serve for three years. Vacancies will have to be filled in 14 days.
It is the President who makes appointments to the CC. But the 22A enjoins the President to make the appointments within 14 days of receiving recommendations from the CC. If he fails to do that, the appointments will be deemed to have been made as recommended by the CC.
