New Year Holidays: Political Quietude amidst Ministerial Family Time
New Year Brings Political Discourse: Economic Debate Looms on Horizon
Media Sparks Debate: Sajith Accepts Challenge Despite ‘Malema’s’ Silence
Debate Drama: Past Presidential Politics Echo in New Challenge
May Day Rally Venue Dispute Sparks Political Tensions in Colombo
Politics takes a back seat
During the New Year holidays, the political landscape has been relatively quiet for the past two weeks as many ministers chose to spend time with their families, some travelling abroad. Approximately 20 government ministers were overseas during this period, either vacationing with their families or visiting their children who were studying abroad. Additionally, the holiday bungalows in Nuwara Eliya, reserved well in advance by MPs, were fully occupied as they spent time with their families. Consequently, there were minimal significant political discussions during this time.
The President himself opted to spend the New Year in Nuwara Eliya, enjoying a leisurely break. He was observed strolling through the picturesque tea plantations, partaking in New Year festivities, and engaging in conversations with locals alongside his ministers.
In contrast, the opposition leader, Mr Sajith Premadasa, had a busy New Year season. Apart from the customary New Year’s celebrations, he dedicated his time to visiting schools in remote provinces such as Hambantota and Monaragala, providing smart classrooms for the students.
Sajith-Anura debate
Although the New Year season witnessed a political lull, occasional glimpses of political discourse emerged through media channels, notably centered on economic matters. The genesis of this discourse stemmed from an impending debate between Sajith and Anura.
The genesis of this discourse stemmed from an impending debate between Sajith and Anura. This debate was initially proposed by SJB MP Nalin Bandara Malima, who advocated for a public discussion between the SJB Economic Committee and Malima’s Economic Council regarding the nation’s economic trajectory. Dr. Harsha de Silva, Iran Wickramaratne, and Kabir Hashim, representing the SJB Economic Committee, swiftly responded to the challenge, expressing their willingness to engage in the debate at any venue of Malima’s choosing.
As tensions simmered, the spotlight turned to whether the Economic Council of Malima, represented by Sunil Handunnetty, Prof. Anil Jayantha, and Prof. Seetha Bandara, would accept the challenge. Amidst the anticipation, Harsha, Iran, and Kabir reiterated their readiness for the debate, affirming their commitment to engage in constructive dialogue wherever necessary.
‘ Malimawa’ avoid debate
Subsequently, prominent television channels such as Hiru, Derana, and Sirasa swiftly announced their readiness to host the anticipated TV debate. However, a snag arose when Nalin Bandara, along with Harsha, Iran, and Kabir from the SJB Economic Committee, openly challenged the Economic Council of Malima to engage in the debate, yet the latter remained conspicuously silent, failing to accept the challenge. Despite the passage of several days, no response emanated from any representative of Malima’s camp.
As the media persisted in questioning Malima’s stance, Sunil Handunnetti, representing the Economic Council of Malimawa, finally broke the silence by issuing a statement. Handunnetti argued against the feasibility of debating between economic committees, citing the upcoming presidential election. Instead, he proposed a debate between the two primary candidates, SJB’s Sajith and Malima’s Anura, challenging Sajith to participate. Many interpreted Handunnetti’s statement as an attempt to circumvent the debate between the SJB and Malima’s economic committees, perhaps anticipating Sajith’s reluctance to engage with Anura. However, contrary to expectations, Sajith promptly accepted the challenge mere hours after Handunnetti’s statement, igniting further fervour and unexpected developments
Sajith is ready
When Handunnetthi made the statement, Sajith was joining the program of providing smart classrooms to the children of the schools under the Sakwala program in Mullaitivu district. When Sajith learned of Handunnetty’s statement through a friend, he contacted Nalin Bandarat and Harshawat at the same time and said that he is ready to accept Handunnetty’s challenge, and is ready to participate in an economic debate with Anura, ready to hold that debate anywhere. Sajith, who asked to inform the media, did not stop there and publicly declared that he was ready to debate with Anura right from Mulathivu.
When Sajith unexpectedly embraced Handunnetthi’s challenge, the political landscape underwent a dramatic shift. Many anticipated Anura’s response to the challenge, yet events took an unforeseen turn. Following Sajith’s acceptance, neither Anura nor his allies uttered a word on the matter. Soon, it became evident to many that Handunnetthi’s remarks on the economic debate had triggered an internal crisis within their circle.
However, even though many days have passed since SJB and Sajith publicly announced that they are ready for the debate, the silence from Anura’s side has become a serious problem for the media. Accordingly, even though the media often inquired about it from the JVP leaders, they gave slippery answers, so it was seen that statements were issued from the SJB side that the JVP was afraid of the debate.
It was confirmed with the intervention of Harini Amarasuriya of Malimawa, who had not said a word about the debate until then. She joined a press conference with a new argument and said that this debate should not be held only between Sajith and Anura, but as the current President Ranil Wickremesinghe is also running for the presidential election, Ranil should also be involved in it. But since Ranil has not made a public statement on whether or not Ranil will stand for the presidential election, it did not take long for SJB leaders to realize that this is an attempt by Malimawa to run away from the debate. On the other hand, it was clear to all that Harini made this statement to disrupt the debate and the hidden purpose was to attack Sajith by bringing Ranil to the debate. This was confirmed through Harini’s statement that UNP and SJB economic policies should be questioned in front of Ranil.
However, with Harini’s statement, Ranil’s family’s newspaper group Lankadeepa, Daily Mirror and Sunday Times used another ploy to disrupt the Sajith-Anura debate. That is with the release of an announcement that Ranil’s family newspaper group is ready to provide the necessary digital platform if the Ranil-Sajith-Anura debate takes place. With the publication of this announcement, SJB MPs said that Ranil has come forward to save Anura as usual, and through that the Anura-Ranil secret deal will be revealed to the country.
After Harini’s speech, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silvad made a statement to the media regarding the Sajith-Anura debate for the first time. It was seen that Tilvin too spoke from a position where this debate was not taking place rather than taking place. In his speech, Tilvin said that about 15 months ago, i.e. in 2023, he invited Anura – Sajith to come for a debate during a political program on Hiru channel, and he has not yet received a response from Sajith. It is implicitly hinting that the debates will not take place even though they are challenged to attend the debates during those election seasons.
Sajith-Gota challenge
However, there’s a significant detail that many seem to have overlooked: during the 2019 presidential election, Mr Sajith Premadasa, one of the candidates, extended an invitation to his main opponent, Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for a public debate. It’s customary in presidential elections for the two main candidates to engage in such debates, a practice common in countries with established democratic norms. In 2019, Sajith reached out to Gotabaya, who was riding high on popularity at the time. However, despite some advising against it within his circle, Gotabaya’s camp opted not to accept the challenge. They feared that a debate with Sajith would tarnish Gotabaya’s media-created heroic image, as they knew he wouldn’t be able to answer Sajith’s questions effectively.
This recent situation mirrors the past, as it became evident that Malimawa, too, sought to evade the debate. Yet, unable to do so outright, they devised another strategy just days before the New Year. They announced the appointment of Nalinda Jayatissa to coordinate the debate from their side. In response, Sajith proposed Nalin Bandara to coordinate from the SJB side. Before the New Year, Nalin and Nalinda engaged in discussions twice and even set a meeting time during the holidays. However, the meeting was cancelled last minute as Nalin had to attend to a family matter in Ratnapura. He informed Nalinda of this development.
However, ‘Mawrata’ learned that Malimawa intended to exploit Nalin’s absence to paint him as avoiding the debate. In response, we swiftly published a news report on our website, announcing Nalinda’s readiness to state the debate. Shortly after, as anticipated, Nalinda addressed the media, stating that SJB failed to attend the scheduled meeting to finalize the debate date.
During Nalinda’s statement, Nalin remained in Ratnapura with his family. He expressed disappointment at Nalinda’s statement, given their prior plans for a meeting after the New Year. Speaking from Ratnapura, Nalin condemned Nalinda’s actions as unethical and declared his decision not to publicly address the matter further out of moral integrity.
A language issue
Meanwhile, an intriguing incident unfolded during the New Year week concerning the Anura-Sajith debate, stemming from a statement made by Sajith. Following his provision of smart classrooms to a school in Hambantota under the Sakwala program, Sajith emphasized the importance of English proficiency, not only for children but also for political leaders. Though no specific names or villages were mentioned, Anura was moved by Sajith’s remarks, prompting a series of messages exchanged between the two through intermediaries. Sajith clarified that his statement was not meant to insinuate anything about Anura but rather underscored the significance of English and information technology skills for children.
Against this backdrop, the prospect of the Sajith-Anura debate remains uncertain, resembling the circumstances surrounding the 2019 Gota-Sajith debate. However, notably absent from the discourse are key figures such as Sunil Handunnetti, Harini Amarasuriya, and Tilvin Silva, who have yet to weigh in on the matter.
Debt is a hassle
Last month, for the first time, we made an extraordinary disclosure through the column ‘Inside Politics’ and said that April 12 is a very crucial day for Sri Lanka. As the reason, we pointed out that the grace period given by China to our country to not pay the debt for 02 years will end on April 12th, after which Sri Lanka will have to pay China’s debt instalments. We also mentioned that Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena made an emergency visit to China and took steps to negotiate with the Chinese President and other authorities regarding the payment of this debt.
Decides on the loan
According to the information we have, China has previously informed Sri Lanka to start paying the debt again from April 12th. In 2022, due to the Corona epidemic and the economic recession, China took steps to postpone the payment of loan instalments and interest for one year as a relief to President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Also, when Ranil sat in the presidential chair after Gota, China postponed the payment of the debt by another year and took steps to extend the relief until 2024. The period of the credit concession will end on the 12th. Accordingly, China has now informed the government to start paying instalments of the outstanding loan amount of 26.4 billion dollars to China after the 12th.
Government request
However, in this regard, the government has requested to extend the loan concession period, and there has been no positive response from China. China has informed that if such debt relief is given only to Sri Lanka, other countries with debts of about 600 billion dollars will also request the same debt relief from China. According to that, China has informed the government that it should start paying the debt first, and after that it may consider giving some relief.
Debt seems to be in trouble
In addition to this, we are ready to reveal an extraordinary revelation about the restructuring of the foreign debt that the president had put weight on to run for the presidential election through the ‘state secrets’ belt this time. The President was ready to somehow complete the restructuring of the foreign debt by the end of July and show it as a big victory for the country and take a big step for the presidential election. Accordingly, after the disclosure of this last week, we also engaged in researching the latest situation of foreign debt restructuring. There we learned that no final agreement has yet been reached on the Chinese debt restructuring. Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena Mata suddenly left for China to reach some agreement in this regard. But during that trip to China, 13 agreements were to be signed, but in the end, only 9 agreements were signed. It is special that neither the government nor China has disclosed the reason for not signing the remaining 4 agreements.
March 31 ‘Inside Politics’
Accordingly, in the last two weeks, we have indicated that there is a low probability of extending the grace period of this debt payment again. What we said was 100 percent correct when it was reported that China has not yet extended its default after April 12th. Accordingly, according to the agreement, on April 18th, Sri Lanka should start repaying China’s debt and pay the first loan installment. But the information we have says that the government has not made any such payment to China. If not, it means that the loan has been defaulted again.
However, the government has been making a big fuss all this time and said that the foreign reserves have increased to 05 billion dollars. Now there is no economic crisis in the country. They said that they will get dollars. If so, the government has no problem paying the debt. If there is no crisis, the government should work to pay the debt. But so far the government has not taken steps to pay the installment of the Chinese loan in the background of such bragging. The sad thing is that such issues, which the country should know about, are not put before the people at least by the economic experts in the opposition.
A Chief is coming
In the face of this situation, a person holding a very powerful position in China is going to visit Sri Lanka on the 23rd. Her name is Sun Haiyan. She is a deputy minister of the Chinese Communist government and a top diplomat representing the Chinese Central Committee. She served as the Chinese Ambassador to Singapore until last year and is also known as a person who played a very decisive role during the economic crisis.
During her visit to Sri Lanka on the 23rd, she is scheduled to meet high-ranking officials of the government, and it is reported that the payment of this Chinese debt will also be discussed to a large extent. And she is coming to Sri Lanka at a time when Chinese ships have not been allowed to enter Sri Lankan waters and foreign debt restructuring has gone into crisis.
Accordingly, there are two possible events during Sun Haiyan’s visit to Sri Lanka. One of them is that there is a possibility to give Sri Lanka another grace period for the payment of related loan installments during the negotiations. It may be 06 months as requested by the government. If that happens, China will have to give other debtors a grace period to pay their debts. It is a kind of crisis.
The other event could be to inform the government to start paying the debt immediately. If that happens, it will surely be like facing a serious situation on the part of the government.
In addition, another special event is scheduled to take place on May 31. It is because the American Hamilton Reserve Bank has decided to announce the decision of the case assigned against Sri Lanka in the Federal Court. The Hamilton Reserve Bank had purchased $250 million worth of bonds, and due to Sri Lanka’s declaration of bankruptcy, interest payments had been suspended. The Hamilton Reserve Bank had filed a lawsuit against it in the Federal Court, and its decision was to be announced earlier, but it was postponed due to the intervention of the US State Department. The reason for that was because the American government maintained a good relationship with the government at that time. But at present those relations are in some problematic situation. Therefore, economic analysts think that if Sri Lanka gets an unfavourable decision from the court decision, Sri Lanka will have to face a very serious crisis.
Here is the correct prediction
Paris Club is also hesitant
In this way, in a background where there is no final agreement regarding the Chinese debt, the Paris society and the United States are also somewhat hesitant regarding debt restructuring. According to the information we have, it is said that these negotiations will probably drag on until October, after which a final decision will be taken. Since the presidential election has been announced by that time, it is possible to see a way that the president’s big trump card will be inactive.
China is suspicious
Meanwhile, there was a cold war between China, India and Sri Lanka in the past regarding Chinese research ships. The reason for this was that every time Chinese research ships were allowed to enter Sri Lankan waters, India expressed strong opposition to Sri Lanka and China. Accordingly, this time we are ready to reveal a special message from Colombo to China regarding the Chinese ships through the ‘Information State Secrets’ channel. In this message from Colombo to China, it is read that due to the holding of general elections in India, I cannot give permission for Chinese ships to come to Sri Lanka, and that permission can be given after the Indian elections. Even if this kind of message comes from Colombo, the ‘State Secrets’ belt has come to know that China does not have much faith in it. China has calculated that this type of message has been received from Colombo to get China to agree on debt restructuring. India’s general election is scheduled to end by next June, and since Sri Lanka’s presidential election has also been announced by that time, China has calculated that it cannot be trusted. Accordingly, the announcement of China’s stance, mostly on debt restructuring, seems to be dragging on until October.
April 07 ‘Inside Politics
This is the revelation we made two weeks ago regarding the restructuring of foreign debt through the ‘state secrets’ belt. We clearly pointed out that the government is very positive about the restructuring of foreign debt, but there is a more serious crisis than the government thinks. Also, the government had planned to use the foreign debt restructuring as a major victory for Sri Lanka and use it as a major trump card in the presidential election.
However, discussions on this matter were held last week but ended without a final decision as we had previously revealed. Otherwise the foreign debt restructuring is a failure. While the leaders of the government, who initially boasted about this matter, later kept silent without saying a word about it, it was none other than Mr. Sagala Ratnayake, who was a senior advisor to the President, who first revealed it to the country. Speaking at a press conference, Sagala said that the foreign debt restructuring negotiations failed due to the inability to fulfil two conditions. But what those conditions were were not presented in detail at the time.
Verity Research later revealed to the country what these conditions were. In a statement, they mentioned that to restructure the foreign debt, the government has imposed a condition that the possibility of fraud and corruption should be closed, and the restructuring of the foreign debt has failed due to the government not agreeing to it.
Here are the conditions
Opposition leader Mr Sajith Premadasa later disclosed this to the country. The leader of the opposition mentioned that the research institute called Verity Research has created a new policy instrument. As a result of the discussion held by the representatives of this institute with the bondholders of our country, they have come to some agreement with the bondholders to conditionally cut the interest rate of the loans of our country.
The opposition leader mentioned that among the conditions presented by the bondholders, there should be good governance that protects the basic and human rights of the people, the anti-corruption mechanism should be implemented with a strong schedule and the government has an opportunity to prove its transparency and transparency at this time.
Also, the government can implement an anti-corruption program. Still, if the government aims to maintain the corrupt political culture full of bribes that steal national property and resources by allowing theft in a bankrupt country, the opposition leader Mr. Sajith Premadasa said that there will be no relief from the bond holders.
In addition to this, last week the Asian Development Bank, which has started providing aid to Sri Lanka, also issued a special announcement regarding Sri Lanka. The announcement stated that the country is facing a major crisis due to the uncertain situation regarding the election.
Also, Mrs. Marie Antonio, the head of the German trade and industry delegation, said in a statement to the media that due to corruption and inefficiency, investors do not choose Sri Lanka. Marie Antonio said that despite the adoption of anti-corruption laws, there is a problematic situation in their implementation, and for this reason, investors are attracted to other alternative countries instead of Sri Lanka.
A May Rally Venue dispute
Following the New Year festivities, the country’s political parties have resumed their activities focused on May Day parades. Currently, there is a noticeable trend of discussions among these parties regarding the organization of May Day rallies following the holiday period. A contentious issue has arisen concerning the allocation of space for the Samagi Jana Balawega to conduct its May Parade.
Initially, Sajabaya expressed intentions to host a record-breaking May rally in Colombo, anticipating over 100,000 attendees. Consequently, they approached the Colombo Municipal Council to secure space at F.R. Senanayake Road for the event. Notably, prior arrangements were made with the council, as the same location was allocated to the JVP for their May rally last year. Initially, the council approved this request.
Later, the JVPEDA sought to hold its May rally at F.R. Senanayake Mawatha, prompting them to request the same location from the city council. Initially, requests were made for Pohottuwa Campbell Field and UNP Freedom Square, but due to complications, the UNP opted for Panchikawatte instead.
The dilemma arose when both Sajabaya and JVP sought F.R. Senanayake Mawatha. While Sajabaya initially seemed favoured, the municipal commissioner informed both parties that the road couldn’t be exclusively allocated, suggesting three alternative locations each. Despite this, Sajabaya questioned why the same road couldn’t be allocated this time, unaware of possible undisclosed negotiations for alternative venues.
The Municipal Council proposed Gunasinghapura Mawatha for Sajabaya and Maitland Crescent for JVP to mitigate inconvenience on May 1st. However, objections from concerned parties led to the consideration of Wijayawardena Mawatha for Sajabaya and Lipton Roundabout for JVP. This decision raised concerns for Sajabaya due to the potential traffic disruption caused by the large gathering at Lipton Roundabout.
In response, Sajabaya threatened legal action against the municipal commissioner for what they perceived as unfair allocation of rally locations. They speculated that higher authorities might be influencing these decisions to disrupt their anticipated large-scale rally in Colombo.