The political upheaval that began in January with the election of new Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, an unassuming 64-year-old technocrat, continues to shake up a country on many fronts that had little going for it. Mainly, Sirisena is working to recast Sri Lanka’s standing away from its status as a pariah country.
With a broad 100 day plan, in addition to setting out to clean up the rot left behind with the departure of the clan of the defeated president Mahindra Rajapaksa, Sirisena is winning a fight to devolve power away from the government in the face of growing opposition from Rajapaksa’s forces. Despite concern over Rajapaksa’s residual influence, Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe, whom he appointed as prime minister, have held their forces together and forged a bipartisan consensus to devolve power away from his own presidency and back to the judiciary and the parliament.
He is also pushing to clean up corruption and shift his country out of the embrace of Beijing towards nonalignment. Given Sri Lanka’s less than wholesome status in the west, Colombo for decades turned to China for both economic assistance and political protection. Concerns have grown over Chinese expansion into the economy, particularly in a huge Colombo Port City project that gave China outright ownership of land next to Colombo harbor.
The US government, sensing the dramatic shift, sent Secretary of State John Kerry to visit the island last week to say the US is prepared to furnish “whatever legal, whatever technical assistance, whatever help we can to support Sri Lanka.” Full story...
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With a broad 100 day plan, in addition to setting out to clean up the rot left behind with the departure of the clan of the defeated president Mahindra Rajapaksa, Sirisena is winning a fight to devolve power away from the government in the face of growing opposition from Rajapaksa’s forces. Despite concern over Rajapaksa’s residual influence, Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe, whom he appointed as prime minister, have held their forces together and forged a bipartisan consensus to devolve power away from his own presidency and back to the judiciary and the parliament.
He is also pushing to clean up corruption and shift his country out of the embrace of Beijing towards nonalignment. Given Sri Lanka’s less than wholesome status in the west, Colombo for decades turned to China for both economic assistance and political protection. Concerns have grown over Chinese expansion into the economy, particularly in a huge Colombo Port City project that gave China outright ownership of land next to Colombo harbor.
The US government, sensing the dramatic shift, sent Secretary of State John Kerry to visit the island last week to say the US is prepared to furnish “whatever legal, whatever technical assistance, whatever help we can to support Sri Lanka.” Full story...
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