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…
Polls
The Inevitability of the Banana Republic
Image courtesy Bloomberg Sri Lanka has been a ‘banana republic,’ for quite some time, and clearly so throughout the oligarchy of the Rajapaksas. Formally, a banana republic is “a small country that is…
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…
Parliamentary Elections and the Political Emancipation of Sri Lanka
As, in private life, the distinction is made between what a man thinks of himself and says, and that which he really is and does, so, all the more, must the phrases…
Resurrecting a Supremacist
Photo from If there is a man in this country, apart from Mahinda Rajapaksa, with a conscience more impervious to ethical and moral considerations, a conscience so thickly armour plated that it…
THE VISION THING: WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY ARE WE VOTING FOR?
Photo AP Photo/Sujeewa Kumar via The phrase ‘regime-change’ is often used to describe the dramatic result of the presidential election on 8th January 2015, both in the sense of a democratic change of…
Maithri’s Mandela Moment: An open letter to the President
Dear Mr President, Please accept my good wishes on your election victory on a platform for good governance, justice and fairness. During the past few weeks, we watched – first in astonishment,…
A Portrait of the Electorate, on the Cusp of an Election
Photo courtesy Maatram Lankans are awaiting the island-nation’s seventh presidential election with a renewed belief in the power of their vote. According to the latest opinion survey by the Centre of Policy…
A Reconciliation Slipping Away
As with every war the silencing of the guns or the signing of a treaty are often only a small step in a long journey of reconciliation. The true progress in rebuilding…
The political landscape post the provincial polls
Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images The elections to the North Western, Central and Northern provincial councils are over and the results have been largely as many political analysts predicted. The UPFA won…
Welcoming the Verdict of the Tamil People
Image courtesy AFP The TNA has swept the polls in the North. More importantly, the Tamil people have voted courageously, convincingly, and clearly. It was an expected outcome, but as President Rajapaksa…
