Anudi Gunasekara, who competed in the Miss World pageant, received a response that Sri Lankan beauties who competed in the Miss World pageant have never received before.
She was a hero on social media. In the history of international beauty pageants, no president has ever congratulated a Sri Lankan beauty pageant contestant. But due to the social media wave that arose across the country in favour of Anudi, the president also congratulated her with the hope that she would win.
Among the Sri Lankan beauties that competed in the international beauty pageant, she received this response because she took Buddhism and Sri Lankan culture to the international arena. She was different from those who competed in international beauty pageants before. But she could not even make it to the first 40 international beauty contestants.
‘Why those who Sri Lanka like the world doesn’t like?
That is the question. The first Sri Lankan beauty queen to gain fame in a beauty pageant was Rosie Senanayake, the Mrs World. When she became Mrs. World, the then Minister of Education and Youth Affairs Ranil Wickremesinghe invited her as the chief guest at the Youth Awards ceremony.
However, the youth award winners boycotted the awards ceremony, saying they could not receive awards from Rosie. The instigators were the opposition parties at the time, including the SLFP and the JVP. Their argument was that it was an insult to them to receive awards from her, who was the choice of the imperialists. At that time, although the tourism industry in Sri Lanka could have gained strength through Rosie, the leftist Sri Lankan SLFP and the JVP belittled the fame she brought to the country.
Next, Caroline Jury brought fame to Sri Lanka in a beauty pageant. But a Sri Lankan beauty pageant jury came together and stripped her, who had won the Mrs. World crown, to send a beauty queen coming from a village in Polonnaruwa to an international beauty pageant arena.
This is how Sri Lanka is. That is how Sri Lankan presidents are elected. The people of Sri Lanka think that the world should accept the president they elect. Whether the president they elect has the ability to deal with the world, or whether he or she can win the world, is irrelevant to them.
When Sri Lanka was bankrupt and signed an agreement with the IMF, at a time when there was a presidential election, the people of Sri Lanka wanted to elect a leader who could deal with the world and accept the world. But Sri Lanka chose a leader who was suitable for Sri Lanka and suited the people of Sri Lanka.
They handed over the government to a group that had no experience of governing the country and had no experience of dealing with the international community. Today, the JVP government is run by Ranil and the IMF. The signed agreement is simply implemented without changing a single word.
But a president and a government that came to power with a popular mandate had the ability to change that agreement in a populist way. For that, that government should be a government and a president who has gained the trust of the Western countries that control the IMF. Then, the new mandate and those relationships could be used to lure the IMF. The JVP government, because it represents a leftist party, views Western countries with suspicion. Driven by this suspicion, the JVP government tries to show its support to Western countries, ignoring Sri Lanka’s long-standing friend Russia, to showcase that they are not anti-Western.
Recently, the Russian ambassador to Sri Lanka spoke with disappointment at the Bandaranaike Center for International Relations about the rejection of President Anura kumara Dissanayake the Russian President Putin’s invitation to attend the BRICS summit in Russia no sooner than Anura became president. The JVP government is making international appearances to please America and Europe to show that it is not loyal to Russia.
During Maithripala Sirisena’s first visit to the United Nations General Assembly as President, the then US President Obama received Maithri warmly at the United Nations General Assembly. US President Obama had also reserved a seat for Maithri at the round table discussion with Russian President Putin and other world leaders. But Maithri was not satisfied with Obama’s response.
He had been a fan of the Soviet Union since he started his political career. Usually, the heroes for leftist SLFP politicians were the leaders of the Soviet Union at that time. Putin in Russia was also a hero of leftist SLFP politicians. Maithri’s hero was not Obama but Putin. It was a great victory for him to sit next to Putin.
Maithri told Putin that his favorite politician at that table was Putin. Putin was also impressed by Maithri’s statement. Maithri also informed Putin that he was willing to visit Russia.
Putin returned to Russia after the UN General Assembly to find out about Maithri and the new government in Sri Lanka. Knowing that the US had intervened to defeat the Rajapaksa government, which was friendly to Russia, he immediately sent Maithri an official invitation to visit Russia.
Not only Maithri but also Mahinda was very keen to go to Russia and meet Putin. Mahinda also visited Russia when he was president. This Russian loyalty of the SLFP comes from the time of the Bandaranaikes. The JVP maintained closer relations with Russia at the party level more than the SLFP. However, there are no reports that Anura Kumara made an attempt to go to Russia after becoming president.
The JVP government is still unable to obtain the fourth loan installment from the IMF. Sri Lanka received the third installment from the IMF last year. Sri Lanka has not yet received the fourth installment. Anura Kumara held discussions with IMF officials to obtain the fourth installment in February this year. That was February 07. But the installment has not been received yet. Previously, during Ranil’s government, those installments were received on time.
Despite the JVP government’s alignment with the IMF, why are they unable to get the installment on time?
It is hard to explain the reasons. Maybe the installment could be released because the electricity bill increased.
But the biggest challenge is not the installment but the challenge that will be faced when the debt repayment begins in 2028. Similar to Sri Lanka, Argentina also was bankrupt and entered into an agreement with the IMF. They agreed to pay the interest on the debt again for a period of time. But at that time, there was no state revenue to pay the interest. Therefore, Argentina declared bankruptcy once again and entered into a new agreement with the IMF.
‘Will the same happen to Sri Lanka…?’
It is difficult to say. Sri Lanka needs foreign investment to start paying the debt in 2028. Once President Trump’s tariff takes effect, we will face a decline in garment exports, putting foreign reserves at a low level.
If Sajith or Ranil had been the president of Sri Lanka when Trump imposed the tariffs, this problem would have been solved a long time back. The tragedy that Sri Lanka is facing today is that when a right-wing president is needed, the people are choosing a leftist.
