THE TNA TSUNAMI: RE-BALANCING THE EQUATION
Image courtesy The Sri Lanka Guardian The TNA victory has shown that Sri Lanka remains a functioning democracy; that it functions when there is competition; and that with or without the 17th…
Polls
Elections in the East, reconciliation and politics: In conversation with Javid Yusuf
Javid Yusuf is an Attorney-at-Law and former diplomat. last featured him over two years ago, just after the Presidential Election in early 2010. In this programme, we talked about the recently concluded…
Eastern Province election: The big lie about shared power in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy AP/Eranga Jayawardena Justice Minister Hakeem was reported to have told during campaigning, he should not be made to look like a man taken hostage. Ministers Rambukwella and Premjayantha, invited TNA to…
The 97% and the 3% in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy Daylife/Reuters We all know about the 99% and the 1% and most of us know where we are or which we sympathise with. I’m with the 99%. But what about…
Reading the results of the municipal elections in Sri Lanka
Is this a functioning democracy or what? The governing coalition’s sweep of the local authorities election, the UNP’s successful resistance in a tough campaign in Colombo, as well as the TNA’s impressive…
Developing the ‘Under served settlements’ in Colombo: An Open Letter
Photo courtesy Prevention Web October 8th 2011 Dear Mr. Milinda Moragoda and Mr. AJM Muzammil, I wrote this open letter before the elections, to be read after, to avoid political misapprehensions that would…
Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Morning After Thoughts and The Local Authorities’ Elections in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy Eranga Jayawardena/The Associated Press President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga always wrote well and spoke eloquently when she resisted a propensity to be overly loquacious. While her recent peroration contains many intelligent…
TNA MP Suresh Premachandran on the result of the Local Government elections
Photo from Wikipedia Updated, 27 July 2011: Listen to exclusive interview with Suresh Premachandran here. This statement on the results of the recently concluded local government elections (covered in detail by here)…
Northern Local Government Elections
(Photo: Reuters, from International Business Times) is curating news and updates from the ground, as well as domestic and international media coverage on the historic local government elections in Jaffna. Polling started…
Democracy in Sri Lanka: Ideas and responses
In March 2010, launched a unique initiative online to ascertain what citizens perceived and accepted as democracy in Sri Lanka. To date, 74 people have submitted 42 ideas and cast 596 votes, but what do YOU think?…
A perennial struggle: Women’s political representation in Sri Lanka
Women constitute 52% of Sri Lanka’s population, however women constitute only 2% of elected members of Local Authorities. A critical concern is the very low levels of nominations received by women (approximately…
A critique of the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill
Juanita Arulanantham & Andi Schubert Introduction[1] This briefing paper highlights some of the key aspects of this Bill and attempts to provide the reader with a basic introduction to the issues and…
Why women in politics always matters: A conversation with Chulani Kodikara
Chulani Kodikara has written five articles for , a compelling essay written for the special edition on the end of war, has at the time of writing only generated around 450 pageviews,…
Content digest: Full coverage of the 18th Amendment, 1 – 9 September 2010
was read well over 22,000 times from 1 – 9 September, when content and debates around the 18th Amendment to the constitution reached their peak. Over 170 comments were featured in the…
Sinhala nationalism, civil society organisations and the future
Nationalism in our post-modern era is an extremely suspect concept. It smacks of homogeneity, patriarchy and insularity; all ideas and concepts that our generation has learned with good reason to suspect. Most…
