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Home » ColumnsEC rejects more than 100 party applications
Financial statements signed by dead accountant, dummy reports and pictures submitted Some 150 political parties have applied to the Election Commission for registration, but the EC is only interviewing officials of less than two dozen parties while the others have been rejected outright. It transpired that some parties had submitted dummy financial reports and false [...]
Some rules are meant to be broken
My dear Choka malli, I thought I must write to you to congratulate you on being sworn in as a Member of the House by the Diyawanna Oya, despite some people trying to prevent you from doing so. You may not realise it, but this is a great achievement that will go down in history [...]
Reviving the economy in a changing global economic environment
Can the Sri Lankan economy that is dependent on exports, workers’ remittances and earnings from tourism revive in the current inhospitable global economic conditions? A credible answer as to what extent the economy could revive cannot be given as the performance of the Sri Lankan economy is very much dependent on several global uncertainties. How [...]
Why is the draft 20th Amendment hostile to greater public accountability?
As public concern over Sri Lanka’s draft 20th Amendment to the Constitution increases exponentially since this amendment was gazetted on 2nd September 2020, so do the sheer absurdity of the justifications thereto. Cunning and deplorably simplistic explanations are put forward by some in Government ranks. The President as a ‘super-constitutional’ creature It is bad enough [...]
Row over murder convict-MP: Speaker takes cover behind court ruling as SJB fires salvo after salvo
Less than a month into its five-year term, the Ninth Parliament of Sri Lanka achieved world-wide notoriety this week when a murder convict on death row was sworn in as a member of the august assembly, amid jeers and a walkout from Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MPs. The swearing-in of Ratnapura district Sri Lanka [...]
No scope for horoscopes
With deference to all the wise heads that put their thinking caps on — so to say — to carve out a historical list of functions for Sri Lanka’s new ministers of state, something did seem missing. With this thing and that, and a pandemic to boot, not everybody would have had time to bisect [...]
Black sataka protest marks death row MP’s House debut
The constitutional storm that loomed on the horizon last week between the Courts and Parliament did not make expected landfall when a two judge Appeal Court bench pre-empted its outbreak on Monday and allowed the Ratnapura MP-elect on death row, SLPP’s Premalal Jayasekera, to attend Parliament and take his oaths as an honourable member of [...]
Governance without accountability at the core of 20th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution has been criticised and demonised on the basis that it created two centres of power that prevented the smooth functioning of Parliament. As discussed in this column last week this is not substantiated by any evidence. The fact that there were conflicting opinions between the President and the Prime [...]
Delay likely in 20A coming before parliament
New developments arise, despite party leaders and Speaker deciding on September 22 presentation PM names a Committee to advise him on provisions of amendments Vasu shouted down after naming Basil Rajapaksa at Cabinet meeting over removal of dual citizenship clause in 20A Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, easily one of Sri Lanka’s most popular politicians, this week revealed [...]
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