Columns
Home » ColumnsScrapping of CCEM: Mangala apologises to President
Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera has apologised to President Maithripala Sirisena for announcing at a news conference that the UNP-controlled Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) headed by the Prime Minister has not been scrapped. He explained to the President that he was not present at the weekly Cabinet meeting on March 20 [...]
What lies ahead for the coalition?
My dear Green Man, I am writing to congratulate you on demonstrating that you have the confidence of Parliament, even when motions of no-confidence are moved against you. If anything, you have been a survivor all these years both within the Green party and outside it – and you have done it again, for the [...]
Reforms imperative to resolve structural and institutional bottlenecks
Among the conclusions of the New Thinkers’ Symposium were that economic reforms are urgent; that institutional misalignment, misidentified reforms, and data deficiencies are key structural and institutional bottlenecks hampering the successful implementation of Vision 2025; and that the most severe impediment to national economic policy implementation is the complex institutional framework within a bloated public [...]
When absurdity becomes insanity in Sri Lanka’s parliament
A crude bid to capture national political power by the so-called Joint Opposition, disgracefully aided and abetted by a section of President Maithripala Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) failed this week. Given the political configurations on the floor of the House, perhaps this failure was inevitable but nothing is certain after all, in this [...]
Joint Opposition makes PM the nation’s new Avurudu Kumaraya
AFTER THE PLANNED CRUCIFIXION, THE RESURRECTION Ten days before the dawn of the Sinhala and Hindu New Year, the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led Joint Opposition gave Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe their New Year gift to him well in advance. They made him the nation’s new Avurudu Kumaraya, the new New Year Prince of Lanka, albeit unwittingly. Last [...]
Royal wins but the game is hardly over
Whatever happened to those political pundits who battered Ranil Wickremesinghe day in and day out in the media backed no doubt by some media moghuls with their own crafted agendas? Some of them were so gung-ho and chirpy as the birds outside at the prospect of driving the prime minister out of his cabalistic battlements [...]
‘No-Confidence’ Motion defeated, but politics plunges into deeper confusion
The United National Party (UNP) mustered sufficient votes to defeat a ‘No-Confidence’ Motion (NCM) against its Party leader and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday, putting an end to days of speculation whether he would survive moves to oust him from the post. The NCM, brought by the Joint Opposition (JO) group in Parliament, was [...]
PM now unassailable; national unity government to continue
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe convincingly won Wednesday’s battle; the motion of no-confidence against him, but the internecine war between the two coalition partners – the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) – has worsened in its wake. For a second time, Wickremesinghe, at least for the moment, is in an [...]
Read More