-By Political Affairs Editor
(Lanka-e-News -02.May.2025, 10.45 PM) In a thunderous May Day rally on the Galle Face Green, Tilvin Silva, General Secretary of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), flanked by red flags and roaring crowds, struck a tone of resolute defiance. "This massive river of people declares that no one can touch this government!" he proclaimed, thundering into the sea breeze like a revolutionary prophet returned from the political wilderness.
This was not just any May Day rally. It was, by all accounts, the largest display of working-class solidarity and populist fervour Sri Lanka has witnessed in recent memory. Tens of thousands poured into Colombo from distant towns and hamlets, scraping together bus fare and packing the capital with a singular message: the left is not only back—it is in power.
Silva, standing tall on the National People's Power (NPP) platform, described the mass mobilisation as a referendum of sorts. “What we have begun cannot be stopped. The people’s mandate is clear: the old guard is finished. Their parties are rotting on the vine.”
He did not mince words. The UNP has no May Day, the SLFP is scattered and disoriented, Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Pohottuwa Party is reduced to muttering in back alleys, and Sajith Premadasa—pitifully attempting a counter-rally in some remote corner—is, according to Silva, so irrelevant that his own announcers begged the crowd not to leave before he had finished speaking.
The NPP, Silva said, is the only political force left standing. And if May 6's local government elections deliver the sweeping victory he anticipates, all others will be left in the pages of a political obituary titled The Red Book of History.
The veteran Marxist was unrelenting in tone: “They dream of August or December elections, new presidents rising from the ashes. But our people have entrusted five years of power to Comrade Anura. No one can oust him. And when that first five years ends, the next five will belong to us too.”
There was something eerily prophetic about Silva’s rhetoric. “What we’ve built is a government no one can shake for generations. They’re dreaming. Let them dream.”
He framed the rally not as a partisan event but as the celebration of the first genuinely people-owned government in the island’s history. “This is not the government of a party. This is the government of the farmer, the worker, the Sinhala, the Tamil, the Muslim, the Malay, the Burgher. For the first time, in the truest sense of the word, a government belongs to the people.”
It was a rally draped in not just red flags but revolutionary conviction.
“The corrupt, the greedy, the ones who used to profit from backroom deals and commissions—they are terrified. They can’t work in a country where power is earned, not bought. And they see what we’ve built—what we are continuing to build: a political culture forged from integrity and public trust.”
Silva’s firebrand speech painted the opposition as nothing more than a whisper in the wind. “All the opposition has left is voice cuts. They can’t even host a proper May Day rally, but they speak of capturing villages. It’s laughable. If you want to defeat us,” he roared, “build a movement more principled than ours. But they can’t. So they resort to slander and lies.”
The most popular lie, he scoffed, is that the NPP leadership is lying. “They can’t critique us with facts, so they accuse us of falsehoods. That’s all they have.”
But Silva’s message extended beyond national borders. “From this May Day stage, we extend our solidarity to workers around the world. We are ready to join the global movement for justice and dignity. We've laboured, struggled, and marched through hardship and defeat to arrive here. And for the first time in Sri Lankan history, we have held the largest ever May Day rally under a people’s government.”
His speech was not only defiant—it was deeply emotional. He acknowledged the sacrifices made by villagers who had pawned jewellery, borrowed money, and skipped meals to attend. “They are telling us: we are ready to not only build this government, but rebuild the country. No personal gain, no ambition—just sacrifice.”
He offered no quarter to the traditional political class. “Those who chased privileges and positions are now fading. Their political projects are withering. They are unfit to lead, unfit to serve.”
Where the old parties were riddled with patronage and personal ambition, Silva promised a government that listens to the heartbeat of the people. “Our government is a patriotic mass movement. It is a symphony of the people’s aspirations. Malimawa [NPP] is not a party government—it is a people's government.”
And then, like the revolutionary he is, he drew the internationalist card: “From Chinese communists to rural plantation workers, from Northern Tamil villagers to Southern peasants, we are uniting this country as no one has done before. This is not a government that can be bought or broken.”
He pointed to the upcoming electoral sweep, promising that with victories at local level, the NPP will move swiftly to eradicate rural poverty with the support of friendly nations like China. “They have promised us—not aid for elites—but support to lift the people.”
The mountains, once neglected, are being given attention. Roads are being opened. Basic rights and dignity are being restored. “Even former presidents are being summoned before the Bribery Commission,” Silva noted with barely concealed relish.
The thieves and racketeers who once lived in luxury, he warned, are now dreaming of how to reclaim their lost privileges. “But it’s too late. The people have spoken—and their voice is mightier than ever.”
His final words struck like hammer on anvil:
“We are building not just a government, but a country—and no one, no one, will be allowed to lay a finger on it.”
-By Political Affairs Editor
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by (2025-05-02 17:30:04)
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