Sri Lanka Chooses Change

Many other such projects will be also checked and investigated. Let us discard the old fashioned politics. Now the island nation is concentrated on him once more.

Since his presidential loss, there has been a sharp reversal of fortunes for Rajapaksa, his family and friends, who were once all-powerful controllers of the nation. The gamble paid off.

Sri Lanka’s ruling UNF on Tuesday secured 106 seats in the 225-member parliament, seven short of majority.

Rajapaksa has remained popular with much of the country’s majority Sinhala Buddhist population but not with minorities, including the large ethnic Tamil minority and Muslims.

What is not fully recognised in India is that the manner in which Sri Lankan troops won the war against Tamil Tigers in its last stages was a searing experience for the Tamil victims of the carnage and for Sri Lankans themselves.

Sirisena wants to reverse numerous constitutional changes brought in by Rajapakse which gave huge powers to the president.

“The challenge before the new administration will be to do a fine balancing act of developing the economy, ensuring rapid democratic reforms, curbing corruption and introducing a process of reconciliation”, Viyangoda said.

“Have these people who are hurling accusations at us been able to produce enough evidence even for a journalist in a mainstream media institution to be able to write a news report about the assets that we are supposed to have amassed?”, Rajapaksa said in an interview with the Island. The new government says, not very clearly, that it will “provide a response within the country’s legal framework”.

Wickremesinghe said he would discuss with President Maithripala Sirisena the concept of building “consensus on our national policies”. India recognizes that it has catching up to do to match Chinese levels of economic investment. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Sri Lanka in early May shortly after the 19th amendment passed and hailed the country’s return to democracy. Rajapaksa ran in the election on a pledge not to enter a national unity government with the UNP. So, having friendly government in Sri Lanka has become important.

Sirisena had supported Indian approach of establishing democracy in Maldives. Therefore the defeat of the UPFA means that Sri Lanka would not enter into a period of political instability.

Restart discussions on an MCC compact.

Rajapaksa’s tried comeback has turned what may need been a sleepy parliamentary election into a big regional story. These discussions foundered, however, when government-LTTE peace talks ended and the fighting resumed in 2005. The northern Tamil dominated electorate had a choice of parties that are prepared to work with the government as well as those that are more geared to opt for confrontation and have the support of the separatist section of the Tamil Diaspora. MCC funding could be particularly useful in encouraging business development and reviving economic activity in the war-torn areas of the north and east.

In the parliamentary election on Monday, Sirisena did not campaign publicly but privately suggested the defeat of his colleague and prime ministerial candidate. Sri Lanka Governor Arjuna Mahendran finds it boring.