I’m Ananda P. Dasanayake from New York City. I left Sri Lanka in 1987 but have kept a close eye on the political arena in the country. I have published my opinions on Sri Lanka before. My focus was on the corrupted political culture in Sri Lanka.
In the last few days, I have watched the parliamentary debates in Sri Lanka. I got to see the failed old guard and many uprising young stars. One thing was more than obvious. There are elements of the corrupted political culture still in the parliament trying to regain the lost power by any means.
If the new parliament is a pot of freshly collected milk, there are chunks of cow dung still there. The new members, both young and old, and male and female, and of all ethnicities spoke eloquently against the corrupt or the stinky cow dung. The president and the prime minister showed mature behavior by example.
In this first term of President AKD in office, I’m thinking about how he and the NPP can best use their years of dedication to eliminating injustice and poverty, their current influence in the country, and their political capital to advance the lives of average Sri Lankans who have suffered for decades under corrupt rulers.
President AKD came into office with a reputation as a commoner who is well educated and has a gift for words. He showed honesty and sincerity. I am not quite sure if they are well versed in foreign policy.
Donald Trump and his cronies have vowed to replace the nonpartisan civil service with loyalists and to weaponize the Department of Justice and the military against those they perceive as enemies. They have promised to incarcerate and deport millions of immigrants, send federal troops into Democratic cities, silence LGBTQ+ Americans, prosecute journalists and their political opponents, and end abortion across the country. They want to put in place an autocracy in which a powerful leader and his chosen loyalists make the rules under which the rest of us must live.
There was a time I advocated for a benevolent dictator to get the job done. The problem with that, it is hard to find that benevolent leader in Sri Lanka for sure. Just look at the last 75 years. So, AKD can’t take the route Trump is taking with 75 million American votes.
This is what I like to see happen to move Sri Lanka forward in the path people put them on. To me, this is a desire of the people expressed on a series of occasions from the chance first given to yaha palanaya (good governance), the subsequent Aragalayaya (Struggle) that resulted in getting rid of Gota and rejecting the Rajapakse clan, then sending Ranil and Sajith home and crushing Namal’s hopes and electing AKD as the president, and finally winning the parliamentary election by a large margin. There is no going back. But the left-over corrupt politicians will try their best and they must be silenced with truth. Not power.
Here are seven things I and most others like to see happen. Sooner the better.
1. Leave the law and order independent of politics and above all
2. Get rid of the corrupt from every sector legally
3. Prevent the corrupt from entering the parliament in the future. Bring new laws on eligibility if you have to
4. Recover any and all stolen assets and punish the guilty
5. Continue to educate the public on the dirty tactics of the opposition and their crimes and also about the progress the government is making despite the opposition obstacles
6. Scrutinize their own NPP politicians. You do not want to give ammunition to the hungry opposition
7. Adopt an evidence-based approach to international and global affairs rather than the ag- old preconceived notions.
At the end of the day, I’m quite confident that AKD and friends will achieve the above, although they may or may not leave any impact on other global affairs such as war.
Now is the chance for President AKD to begin, albeit a bit too late, to achieve the above steps to the satisfaction of the voters. I hope they will show us some good faith efforts by March 2025.
