Whilst it is not clear as to whether we would be voting in both the presidential and general elections on the same day, it is clear that we will be voting in at least one of them in the next three months, followed soon thereafter by the other.  Most likely it will be the presidential elections since it is the president who has to decide and since he is much more popular than his party. Moreover, we have been told that he is willing to sacrifice, if necessary, two years of his first term in order to secure a second and a parliamentary majority nearest to the heart’s desire.

All elections are important and these will be no exception. It is worth …

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Part 1

The strap of my bag unbuckled under the strain as I squeezed out of the bus in Kurunegala. The clock tower read an unrushed 6.40 am on its weary face. It was quite possibly a relic from the Premadasa era, bearing testament to a President who erected large clocks in many city centres and villages, subtle messages about punctuality woven into a fabric of ageless and often useful, chaos. I checked my wrist watch, because the clock face that looked over the sleepy town looked too burdened to be reliable. If the train was on time, I had forty minutes to get to the railway station which I knew couldn’t be too far.

Struggling to buckle the strap, I went …

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I took these photos in Dambulla. Today, on a day we celebrate Human Rights, I hope we spare a thought for thousands of children in Sri Lanka who have been affected by the conflict. 

Introduction

The United People’s Freedom Party (UPFA) claimed its second consecutive provincial electoral victory on the 24th of August by winning a clear majority of seats in the North Central and Sabaragamuwa Province.  This election was more competitive than the previous Eastern Provincial Council election,  where the government managed to get the Tamil and Muslim votes by  their crafty handling of Pillayan and Hisbulla.  Unlike in the Eastern province, the government contested in the North Central and Sabaragamuwa provinces with relatively unpopular politicians and more importantly on a platform where the opposition politicians too enjoyed almost equal access to votes. However, election results proved that the desperate United National Party, has once again failed to shake up  the electoral support of …

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The latest survey conducted by the Social Indicator, the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives reveals that Sri Lankans express mixed opinion on the recent crossover by the 18 UNP parliamentarians along with 6 Muslim Congress MPs. 37% of people approve of this move while the same percentage disapproves. Interestingly, a quarter of Sri Lankans are either unaware of the crossover or do not have an opinion on whether to approve or disapprove of it; despite the chaos it has triggered in many corners that is yet to be settled.

In the wake of numerous interpretations and reinterpretation of the present political situation as a result of the recent crossover by the political elites, the authors of …

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Personal vignettes, in Sinhala, aimed at stimulating our thinking on social, political and economic issues.

In this post I talk about the rapidly disappearing shoe-repairmen, a Singer-Mega mega hoodwink, and the high security nature of migratory birds…

Click on Notes of a Citizen Journalist to read my missive.