Rajapaksa brothers’ landslide win in Sri Lanka should get ‘liberals’ thinking

SINGAPORE: The landslide victory of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or Sri Lanka Peoples’ Front) led by the Rajapaksa brothers throws a challenge to so-called “liberals” everywhere whose ideology may not be in sync when a huge portion of the electorate votes for a “strong” government rather than a coalition representing various segments of the community that may not provide political and economic stability at a time of crisis.

As retired political science professor Jayadeva Uyangoda argues in a commentary published on August 9 in a number of media outlets in Sri Lanka, that the failure of the yahapalanaya (good governance) government installed by the 2015 landmark elections with a promise of democratic revival, promoting peace and reconciliation and establishing corruption-free governance, has now given rise to a “radically new political alternative for Sri Lanka with a strong leader, a strong government, a strong administration with military participation, with just one strong center of power, with no checks and balances. The stress has been on the word strong,” he notes, adding that the word “strong” had been couched in Sinhala-Buddhist patriotic symbolism and discourse.