Sri Lanka has embarked on a democratic transition following the election of a new President in September last year, then a new parliament in November. The ruling party, National Peoples Power (NPP), increased its seats from 3 to 159, forming a majority in the 225-seat parliament.
Despite this considerable power, the new government is struggling to gain momentum on the deep structural reforms demanded by voters, most of whom are low-income working-class people from Sinhala-Buddhist backgrounds.
Since 1977, Sri Lanka has pursued a neoliberal economy, deregulating markets in the interests of investors (capital), and privatisating public goods and services. To carry out its “economic growth” strategy, successive governments promoted exports, such as tea, rubber, coconut, spices and garments, as well as tourism and migrant workers.
This economic project was legitimised through a cultural project grounded in a patriarchal Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalist notion of nationhood, which also established an authoritarian presidential system of government.
The new NPP government, following the same economic trajectory, has focused on reforms strengthening social protection. This accompanies efforts to transform Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalist tendencies towards a more inclusive multi-ethnic, multi-religious nationhood project. In the background is an expansive military sustained under “national security”, which is also about addressing rural unemployment.
Cultures of patronage
Since 2004, under the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, cultures of political patronage expanded. State institutions were increasingly shaped by clientelist, hierarchical and informal politics that plundered public resources and undermined public trust in the state. Furthermore, a culture of political patronage undermined the public sector.
The spread of deregulated markets along with consumer culture also impacted state media, turning it from a public good aimed at informing citizens to being more aligned to private media practices, such as producing “infotainment”. This media populism marginalised journalistic standards of research and informed deliberation.
The strengthening of patriarchal Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalist politics accompanied the deterioration of state institutions through patronage cultures that demanded submission rather than debate and discussion.
The 2022 popular uprising was about transforming these anti-democratic patronage cultures that plundered state resources leading to the debt crisis. The ruling political elites, legitimised by the business community, conservative Sinhala-Buddhist monks and the mainstream media, were the key actors. The protest was a citizenship movement demanding the democratisation of the state, involving participatory mechanisms for citizens, linked with public accountability and transparency.
Avoiding debt cancellation
The main challenge for the new government is the debt restructuring process. The government debt is around US$36 billion. This consists of: US$12 billion in debts to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Asian Development Bank; US$13 billion in bilateral debts to the United States, Europe, Japan, India, China and Russia; and US$11 billion in debts to International Sovereign Bonds holders such as Blackrock, Pacific Investment Management Company and the China Development Bank.
The government negotiated a debt restructure in June that gained the confidence of financial markets. The new government ratified it on November 26, just days after it took power.
This agreement meant that the government avoided demands of debt cancellation, particularly of “odious” or illegitimate debt, or debt that has benefited specific individuals in power (and their families) and not the public.
The restructuring of debt also included a new financial instrument linked with governance. The governance-linked bond (GLB) involves reducing interest on debt linked with “key performance indicators” based on the IMF-advocated total revenue to GDP ratio (reducing government spending, while marketising public services), and a specific real GDP growth rate from 2024 to 2027.
Economic ‘growth’ fetish
So the “growth fetish” continues without any discussions on why growth in previous years failed to produce secure jobs with liveable wages, reduce economic inequality or initiate policies towards mitigating climate warming. This growth fetish also excludes all the non-monetised care work within families and communities, mostly done by women, and increasingly undermined by rising education and health costs, and cuts to welfare programs.
So-called “sustainable growth strategies” (roads, industrial zones, urban housing, etc.) driven by fossil fuels (coal generated power plants) add to the climate disasters, such as floods, landslides and droughts, which displace people who are then resettled in areas encroaching on forest reserves with limited roads and access to water.
Human-elephant conflict has also become a key concern, highlighting the destruction of forests by the appropriation of land for economic activities.
As Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit: “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
The NPP government has adopted the “eternal economic growth” mantra, dismissing any discussion around degrowth, to address the ecological crisis and reimagine an alternative development model of “living well’ (buen vivir).
Legal system and state violence
The anti-corruption agenda of the new government is focused on regaining public trust in the legal system and establishing the independence of the judiciary. During the official celebration of Anti-Corruption Day on December 9, the President openly demanded that the Attorney General’s department address delays in the judicial process and the misuse of authority.
In his speech Dissayanake said: “In 2021, 69 cases were concluded, and of these, 40 were withdrawn ... In 2022, 89 cases were filed, and 45 of them were withdrawn. If we are accountable to the citizens of our country, shouldn’t we provide a clear explanation for this?”
Some of these cases relate to how the police and the AG’s department, under political patronage, harass, threaten and intimidate opponents. This also impacts on activists who participated in the popular uprising. The police file cases without any substantive evidence, and the cases are dragged through the courts, reraumatising victims, until they are withdrawn. These are invisible forms of state violence, causing physical and emotional injuries to individuals, their friends and families.
During the same speech the President also highlighted how corruption and bribery cases involving Sri Lankans are prosecuted in other jurisdictions such as US, Britain and Australia. “In Australia, an investigation revealed that an Australian company had paid bribes while supplying medical equipment to the Hambantota Hospital.” Hambantota is the former Rajapaksa regimes ancestral electorate and the hospital project also revealed illegal financial flows linked with off-shore tax havens.
Early reforms – tinkering at the margins
The new government has focused on some easy to achieve targets in terms of cutting wasteful government spending, such as luxury vehicles and residences used by former politicians, and excessive security personnel assigned to former Presidents. Investigations into allegations of illegal accumulation of wealth are also launched targeting key politicians, including the Rajapaksas.
The new government also extended social welfare, which covers about a million people, by raising the monthly allowance and providing extra funds for school equipment for families on welfare. Among other reforms: raising the fertiliser subsidy for farmers; introducing fuel subsidies for multi-day and one-day fishing vessels; and raising public sector employees’ pensions.
The new government is also reforming public procurement, which was syphoning public funds through corruption. These reforms are aimed at re-establishing integrity, efficiency, transparency and fairness. Recently, the government reduced the price of a cancer vaccine (from Rs.76,000 to Rs. 370) by ending the supply monopoly.
The government is also intervening on more difficult issues of tax fraud and tax avoidance.
The prosecution of elected politicians and senior state officials linked with the 2019 Easter Sunday attack is also being pursued by the government. However, the government and its supporters are silent on reducing the bloated military budget.
Social protests
Despite the popular support maintained by the NPP, there have been some protests. Teachers and principals protested demanding the implementation of promotions, salary increments and service confirmations. Some teachers (school development officers) protested demanding their integration with the permanent teaching staff.
Students have protested demanding the allocation of 6% of the budget for education, which has been a long-standing demand. University students, mostly from low-income households, are demanding an increase in their living allowance.
There were protests also by railway workers and water supply workers. These protesters are often NPP supporters. While the government has avoided the violent strategies of the previous regime, it has also highlighted the institutional challenges, such as the police and military intelligence units maintaining fiefdoms.
In early January, four farmers’ organisations protested in the East, demanding the immediate cessation of land allocation for a solar power plant, a joint venture between a Sri Lankan public electricity company and an Indian public thermal power company. Without adequate engagement with local communities, this land grab for “development” is a key process expanding industry, infrastructure, real estate and extraction.
Right-wing forces
The right-wing forces are maintaining their efforts to undermine the government, by fuelling misinformation, fake news as well as some of the protests. During the annual Maaveerar Naal (Great Heroes Day) commemorating the deaths of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters, the mainstream media framed these events as a threat to “national security”, code for Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism.
The event is mostly observed among the Tamil communities in the North and East provinces of Sri Lanka and by sections of the global Tamil diaspora. It is also important to note that the LTTE avoided recognising the loss of Tamils who belonged to other Tamil militant movements.
Meanwhile, a Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalist group, called the Mothers Movement, held a gathering in front of the US embassy, following Donald Trump’s inauguration, supporting his anti-LGBTI discrimination.
With increased representation of women in the new parliament, some of the NPP women representatives have faced sexual harassment. Most of this takes place on social media, mainly Facebook. Two outspoken NPP women politicians filed complaints with the police, and one of the culprits, a former member of the Rajapaksha party, was arrested and charged.
Regional alliances
The new President also visited India in December and China in January — two key regional actors. The core political party of the NPP, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Peoples Liberation Front, JVP) has always critiqued India’s sub-imperialist tendencies. The 1987‒89 JVP insurrection was directly against the Indian military, which was invited in as a “peace keeping force”.
The NPP’s orientation towards recognising a multi-ethnic nationhood, opposes the Hindu ethno-nationalist agenda of the ruling BJP in India. However, during his visit to India, the President signed some minor agreements related to a few university scholarships, training for public servants and investment in a component of a railway project.
In contrast, China, as a key player in the debt restructuring strategies, is important for the NPP. During the President’s visit, a major (US$ 3.7 billion) new agreement was signed with China’s state oil giant, Sinopec to build a refinery in Hambantota, next to a Chinese-owned port. Sinopec, one of the largest oil and gas transnational companies, is considered the main foreign direct investor in Sri Lanka.
The NPP government also ended the ban imposed by the previous government — allied to the Indian government — on Chinese Navy “spy ships” mainly known as “research vessels”. The ways in which the NPP negotiate relations with India and China also concerns other geopolitical alliances, anti-imperialism, and efforts towards a multipolar world.
Strengthening social movements
The new NPP government is engaged in a reform process with many challenges. Diverse state and non-state actors, such as contractors, have entrenched interests in maintaining the status quo (depleting state resources for private benefit). Meanwhile, the Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalists want to maintain the executive presidential system and the military.
Across the state apparatus, even within the police and the military, there are fiefdoms, which include networks of actors that want to maintain their domains of authority (enabling rent extraction) and avoid prosecution for past crimes.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media is engaged in sowing seeds of discontent. Although the state media has gained some autonomy from interference by the ruling party, there are still major constraints on press freedom, including repressive laws like the Online Safety Act, and the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act.
While the NPP illustrates a shift from previous populist modes governance, the contradictions of the lack of secure jobs, economic inequality, land grabs and climate displacement will foment popular discontent. Rather than democratic social movements, this discontent is likely to be appropriated by the kinds of forces linked with global networks of White Christian nationalism, promoted by Trump and Musk.
Organising the casualised labour force and workers in the private sector, while strengthening worker organisations and trade unions, is central to any democratisation agenda. Women workers (in agriculture, manufacturing and services — as migrant workers) make a significant contribution to the economy.
Strengthening the labour movement while building alliances with other movements and activist networks — such as farmers, students, women, disability rights, human rights, media freedom and ecological campaigns — will be important to the NPPs social movement dimension and the ability of Sri Lankans to chart a democratic course beyond the limits of contemporary representative politics.