-By LeN Colombo Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -19.May.2025, 11.00 PM) In the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s recent local government elections, a resounding political truth emerged from the ballot boxes: the people spoke — and they spoke clearly. The National People’s Power (NPP), a left-wing populist coalition led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), stormed to victory, securing 256 of 340 local government bodies, including the prized jewel of urban politics, the Colombo Municipal Council. For a country battered by corruption, economic chaos, and dynastic egos, this was a democratic reawakening. A cry for clean governance. A break from the bloated baggage of the past.
But not everyone is happy when the people speak. Especially those who believe the people are mistaken.
Enter the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) — Sri Lanka’s official opposition party — led by Sajith Premadasa, heir to a legacy, owner of an LSE non-degree that he’s waved like a royal pardon, and now, apparently, co-conspirator in a political coup. Alongside him is the ever-green United National Party (UNP), helmed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe — a man so unpopular at the ballot box that even his shadow refuses to vote for him. Together, these two relics of elite politics appear to be cooking up what can only be described as a democratic heist.
Their plan? To cobble together artificial majorities in local councils where they lost, using backdoor alliances, horse trading, and a little bit of parliamentary prestidigitation. If you can’t win the match, change the scoreboard.
Let’s not be coy. This isn’t politics as usual. It’s a blatant subversion of public mandate.
In a functioning democracy, when a party wins a majority — especially as resoundingly as the NPP has — that party is granted the legitimacy to form local governments, appoint mayors, and begin administration. That’s called people’s will. But what the UNP and SJB are now attempting is to bypass this will through clandestine coalitions and unholy alliances — many orchestrated in air-conditioned offices in Colombo rather than the dusty polling booths of Anuradhapura or Matara.
Even more laughably, these maneuvers are being justified under the banner of “responsible governance.” The very parties that brought Sri Lanka to economic ruin now want us to believe that they, and not the public, know best. It’s like a pickpocket preaching about personal space.
Now, before diving deeper into this democratic derailment, let us spare a moment for the man leading the SJB's charge: Sajith Premadasa — Sri Lanka’s answer to the riddle, “What happens when a privilege complex meets a PowerPoint presentation?”
Sajith has long presented himself as an “Oxford-educated,” “LSE-trained,” liberal-minded leader, but the truth — as detailed in numerous watchdog reports — is that the only degree he ever got was self-conferred. The infamous LSE certificate he proudly displayed in Parliament — an “attendance certificate” which openly declares he neither sat for exams nor completed a course — is now framed as proof of his intellectual prowess.
This is akin to walking into the Louvre, buying a ticket, and later claiming to be a French art historian.
Yet here he is, leading a campaign to hijack local council majorities won by NPP — a party that, whatever its ideological baggage, has won fair and square. The contrast is stark: one party earned its victory through grassroots mobilisation; the other is trying to reclaim power by what can only be described as political forgery.
And then we come to the UNP — the party that’s not so much alive as it is embalmed.
Having failed to win even a single elected seat in the last General Election, the UNP somehow occupies the highest office in the land. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who came to power through a constitutional technicality following the 2022 meltdown, now fancies himself as a stabiliser, a sage, and a steward of governance. Never mind that he commands the electoral support of approximately his immediate family and a few bored crows in Colombo 7.
Ranil’s interest in joining hands with the SJB to reverse NPP’s gains is understandable. He sees local government as the staging ground for 2025. What better way to derail a rising force than by denying it its rightful place in the current system? But make no mistake — this is not governance. This is political taxidermy, where dead mandates are reassembled to appear lifelike.
Let’s call this for what it is: an assault on democracy — not with tanks, but with tactics.
This is the sort of manoeuvre that would earn side-eye even in the halls of Westminster. Imagine the Labour Party winning a majority of borough councils across the UK, only for a coalition of Lib Dems and Tories to swoop in and appoint their own mayors using shady deals and crossed fingers. There would be outrage. There would be resignations. There would be editorials with titles like “Death by Deal-Making.”
In Sri Lanka, however, it is greeted with stunned silence from most mainstream media, many of whom have long given up reporting in favour of regurgitating press releases. The Bar Association says nothing. The Election Commission offers vague shrugs. And the average citizen, already fed up with inflation, corruption, and fuel queues, is left wondering if their vote matters at all.
This sudden marriage of SJB and UNP is also rich in irony. Only months ago, President Wickremesinghe took potshots at Sajith’s political legitimacy, openly mocking him in parliamentary speeches. He even ventured into the grotesque by making innuendos about Premadasa’s family, reportedly joking about his child being the product of IVF treatment — a jab as crude as it is cowardly.
Now, these same men are supposedly forging a political alliance? It’s the equivalent of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn sharing an Airbnb.
But this is not a marriage — it’s a transactional one-night stand, born out of desperation and fear. The UNP needs a fig leaf to cover its irrelevance. The SJB needs an alibi for its own ideological confusion. Together, they are trying to stage a comeback by hijacking what they could not earn.
But here lies the trap. In trying to deny the NPP its due, the SJB and UNP may well be writing their own political obituary. Voters are not fools. They understand when their will is being sabotaged. They know when the elite club upstairs is playing musical chairs while the house burns below.
By conspiring to overrun local council results, the SJB risks alienating precisely the swing voters it hopes to court in 2025. The UNP, meanwhile, has nothing left to lose — which is probably why it's willing to risk everything.
But Sri Lanka’s recent past is full of examples where political overreach backfired — spectacularly. Remember when Mahinda Rajapaksa tried to install a prime minister by sacking Ranil in 2018? The public backlash was swift. The courts intervened. Democracy survived — just barely.
If Sajith Premadasa wants to avoid becoming the next chapter in that cautionary tale, he must remember: you cannot outsmart the public forever.
For its part, the NPP must not fall into the trap of victimhood. Yes, the hijacking is real. Yes, the conspiracy is obvious. But the true test of democratic maturity is not just winning the mandate — it is defending it lawfully, transparently, and with grace.
Any overreaction — street fights, rallies-turned-riots, incendiary rhetoric — will only serve to justify the political manoeuvring of its opponents. The NPP must take its case to the court of public opinion, and if necessary, the literal courts. Let the record show who honoured the vote — and who tried to burn the ballot box.
Sri Lanka is not just emerging from economic bankruptcy. It is emerging from democratic trauma. People are desperate — not just for food and fuel — but for fairness. The idea that their vote, their voice, their civic power still matters.
If the SJB and UNP succeed in this local-level coup, it will send a message louder than any campaign slogan: that in Sri Lanka, politics is not about representation — it’s about replacement. That elections are not expressions of the people’s will — but auditions for backroom deals.
This is not democracy. This is its parody.
And as every comedian knows — parody is only funny when it’s not your country being ridiculed.
-By LeN Colombo Correspondent
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by (2025-05-19 21:56:48)
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