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The United States has told Sri Lanka that it will suspend talks on the controversial Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Sri Lanka until the presidential election is over. US Ambassador Alaina B.Teplitz outlined her country’s position during a meeting with President Maithripala Sirisena. She had sought such a meeting weeks earlier and the President [...]
It’s a family issue
My dear Mahinda maama, I thought of writing to you after seeing and hearing you at the big tamasha last week to introduce your malli, Gota, as the candidate of the ‘pohottuwa’ party at the next big election for the top job. It was impressive as an evening of entertainment rather than a political event, [...]
Fiscal slippage will undermine economic stability
Fiscal consolidation is crucial to stabilise the economy and achieve higher economic growth. This year’s high fiscal deficit will destabilise the economy and affect the country’s medium-term economic growth. Macroeconomic fundamentals are being undermined by the government’s populist expenditure this year and the fiscal deficit for 2020 is also likely to be higher than the [...]
The ‘old’ must, without question, give way to the ‘new’
There is a familiarly relentless logic to the political trauma that is currently paralysing Sri Lanka. The too-premature, too-euphoric frenzy that preoccupied ‘yahapalanaya’ (good governance) grandees and their coat-hanging enthusiasts in the aftermath of the 2015 electoral win for the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition as they pronounced the electoral demise of the Rajapaksas is one definitive factor. [...]
Killing democracy but when and how
When you turn to this column today, the pro-democracy mass protests in Hong Kong would be in its third month. How long the protestors will man the barricades if and when China decides to strike back and how as it becomes increasingly infuriated at the mounting violence, must worry the ordinary Hongkongers and foreign business [...]
Obama style Presidential campaign for Gotabaya Rajapaksa
Even SLPP leader Mahinda Rajapaksa unhappy about Sirisena’s appeal for a Supreme Court opinion Premadasa now pushing openly for nomination, but Ranil also stands firm; party division deepens; no decision till next month With contradictory responses President has woven a web and put himself in the middle After last Tuesday’s weekly Cabinet meeting ended, [...]
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