Rajapaksa’s Retreat: Temporary Truce or Political Imposture?
Photography courtesy The active politician is a creator, an initiator: but he is neither creates from nothing nor does he move in the turbid void of his own desires and dreams.…
Elections
One Year Of Yahapaalanaya: The Highs And Lows
Featured image courtesy Youtube On January 8, 2015, thousands flocked to Independence Square to watch Maithripala Sirisena take his Presidential vows. With his promise to promote or ‘good governance’ the atmosphere was…
Yahapalanaya at One: When will our leaders ‘walk the talk’?
Featured image courtesy vivalanka.com I shared those words one year ago on Twitter and Facebook through a simple web meme. At the time, it was very much an aspiration, as we Lankans…
As Canada Goes to the Polls
Picture courtesy the Prime Minister’s Office of Canada. I write this on the day of elections in Canada, a country excited about change after a dark period of conservative rule. I have…
National List? What List?
Photo courtesy Article 14 The 8th parliament has been convened after a roller-coaster election. The indelible ink still stains my little finger, but my optimism about the national list wore off some…
Sri Lanka Parliamentary Election 2015: How did Social Media make a difference?
What role (if any) did social media play in the recently concluded Parliamentary (General) Election on 17 August 2015? Many are asking this question – and coming up with different answers. That…
Wheels Up in Colombo: Destination Unknown
Photo EPA/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA via Upon discovering I had been chosen as a short-term observer for the parliamentary election, it felt like Christmas had come early. Dallas to Doha to Colombo. And then on…
The Use of Strategic Considerations in Elections
Photograph by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte, via On what criteria should we vote in elections? Should it based on the issues closest to our own, irrespective of likely consequences? Or should it be strategic, designed…
The Deconstruction of a Supremacist
Photo via Al Jazeera Notwithstanding his rise to ultimate power as a politician in this country, Mahinda Rajapaksa retains the mindset of an uneducated peasant , in this instance from Giruwapattuwa. Despite…
From Real Election to Realpolitik
Photograph courtesy Wall Street Journal The UPFA fought two consecutive elections in an imaginary country and lost them both. In that imaginary country the minority vote was of less value and weight;…
A word from an academic to the new Government
Let me first congratulate President Mr. Maithripala Sirisena and the elections commissioner Mr. Mahinda Deshapriya for bringing such an honor to Sri Lanka from across the Globe for the high standard of…
Archives of General Election 2015: #SLGE15 & #GenElecSL
Over eight weeks, archived every single tweet tagged with either #SLGE15 or #GenElecSL. Once a week throughout the campaign period, these archives were released over Twitter for anyone to browse through or…
Letter by President Maithripala Sirisena to Mahinda Rajapaksa
### Dear Mr. Mahinda Rajapasksa, I am writing to you today, in my capacity as the chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the leading single political party in the United…
NO WAY, MR. RAJAPAKSA
Photo by AP Photo/Sanka Gayashan, via Japan Times A slogan from one of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s campaign websites for tomorrow’s election reads, “Let’s start afresh”. Looking at it harder, the slogan is as…
I believe
I believe in human equality more than national security I believe in an unstable democracy more than a stable dictatorship I believe in social justice more than the creation of wealth I…
