Category: Featured Headlines

Net favourability rating of Sri Lanka opposition leader Sajith Premadasa increased in March but rival Anura Kumara Dissanayake continued to lead, though all potential candidates including them had negative ratings for the month.

The Institute for Health Policy (IHP) which carried out the survey found that Premadasa’s net favourability had increased by 30 points to -30 in March compared to the previous month while favourability ratings of National People’s Power (NPP) leader Dissanayake and President Ranil Wickremasinghe remained relatively unchanged at -24 (-2) and -78 (+1) respectively.

IHP said in a statement on Thursday April 18 that favourability estimates for each month are based on 100–400 interviews conducted during that month and during a few weeks before and afterward to ensure a minimum set of responses. The March 2024 estimates are based on 401 (Premadasa), 377 (Dissanayake), 406 (Wickremasinghe), and 145 (former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa) interviews.

IHP’s Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) surveys a national sample of adults (ages 18 and over) reached by random digit dialling of mobile numbers, and others coming from a national panel of respondents who were previously recruited through random selection. SLOTS tracks favourability by asking respondents if they have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of a public figure or institution: net favourability being the average of the positive (+100) and negative (-100) responses. All estimates are weighted to match the national population with respect to age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sector, province and past voting preference. Monthly estimates are based on samples of 100+ interviews pooled from interviews in each month and from weeks before and afterwards. As the March update uses a more recent data set than the previous update, there are small changes in estimates of favourability ratings for previous months.

“The SLOTS survey has previously been funded by the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), The Asia Foundation in Sri Lanka, and others. Current field work is financed by the IHP Public Interest Research Fund and others. The sponsors play no role in the study design, analysis, or interpretation of findings. Furthermore, the survey findings do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of past and present funders,” IHP said.

The Colombo District Court has extended an enjoining order preventing former president Maithripala Sirisena from serving as chairman of the crisis-riddled Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

Attorney-at-law Lakmal Wickramarachchi told reporters on Friday April 18 that objections will be filed on May 09.

“Proxies were filed on behalf of former president Maithripala Sirisena and the general secretary of the party. We obtained dates for filing objections to the enjoining order. We expect to file our objections on May 09 and present facts seeking the removal of the enjoining order,” he said.

The order, made by the court following a case filed by former president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, will be in effect till May 09.

Meanwhile, SLFP acting general secretary Dushmantha Mithrapala has filed objections at the National Election Commission to the new appointments made to the SLFP on April 08, media reports said Friday afternoon.

On Tuesday, Mithrapala accused party stalwarts of attempting to “betray” the party to its traditional rival the United National Party (UNP).

The SLFP last week appointed its incumbent vice president Nimal Siripala de Silva as the party’s acting chairman, amid much controversy. The appointment was made at a politburo meeting held April 08 morning after the the Colombo District Court issued an interim order the previous week preventing former President Maithripala Sirisena from serving as SLFP chairman.

Former President Kumaratunga, whose father S W R D Bandranaike founded the party in the 1950s, also hit out at Sirisena last week.

“When everyone asked me to run for president in 2015, I said no and brought in the SLFP general secretary, with great expectations. He ruined the country and the party too. That mistake was corrected today,” she said.

She added that the party constitution is a mess, which she attributed to Sirisena’s actions as SLFP chairman.

“I will never leave the SLFP,” she said.

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has arrested a retired Major of the Sri Lanka Army and another person for fraudulently obtaining money from individuals on the promise of sending them for employment in the Russian army, police said.

However, on April 01, the Ministry of Defence announced that all members of Sri Lankan tri-forces have been informed not to join Russian or Ukrainian forces by any illegal means.

The Ministry of Defense also mentioned that against a background where there is no agreement between the Sri Lankan army and the Russian army to send Sri Lankan military members to serve in Russia, such incidents will damage the reputation of the country.

Meanwhile in December 2023, it was reported that three Sri Lankan mercenaries were killed in Russian attack while serving in Ukrainian military.

Nevertheless, a report published on Al Jazeera news service which quoted several Sri Lankans living in Russia, highlighted that hundreds of Sri Lankans are now serving with the Russian military in Ukraine, most lured into combat by Russia’s offer of salaries up to $3,000 a month and the prospect of Russian citizenship.

“Many more – mostly retired Sri Lankan soldiers – are also desperately trying to join the Russian army, willing to risk death at the hands of Ukrainian forces in exchange for Moscow’s money amid dire poverty at home in Sri Lanka”, it added.

The CTID has summoned and questioned the head of the Tamil Literary Forum after he organized the launch of a book based on the LTTE’s defeat of the armed forces in Elephant Pass 24 years ago.

Pradeepan Deepachelvan was summoned to its branch at Paranthan in Kilonochchi on 14 April and interrogated for more than 2 ½ hours.

He was especially asked if he intended a revival of the LTTE by introducing the novel in question

’34 Natkalil Neendikkadanda Nerupparu’ (crossing fire river in 34 days) written by N. Yogendran was launched four days earlier.

The organizer of the event replied to the CTID that he had no such intention and that he held it out of respect for its writer.

The speakers at the event too, are to be interrogated, correspondents said.

Sri Lanka on Tuesday rejected international bondholders’ proposal to restructure more than $12 billion in debt, putting at risk critical International Monetary Fund support and delaying its efforts to resolve a two-year-long debt crisis.

Some of the proposal’s “baseline” assessments and a lack of a contingency option in the case of continued economic weakness were the two main reasons the deal was not agreed, the government said in a statement.

Colombo said it hoped to hold further talks “as soon as feasible” but the immediate risk was that without a compromise in the coming weeks, the next tranche of all-important IMF support money could potentially get delayed.

Sri Lanka has already struck a deal with its main government creditors, but an “agreement in principle” with bondholders was also needed to secure IMF Board approval for the next $337 million instalment of its $2.9 billion programme.

The government said one of the main stumbling blocks had been that the “baseline parameters” of the bondholders’ plan had not matched those embedded in its IMF programme.

It added that the bondholders’ “steering committee” that it has been negotiating with in recent weeks had not wanted to extend “restricted discussions” – a key part of debt talks where they are held privately, behind closed doors.

Following an initial extension, it would be unusual for big money managers to remain restricted for too long given it also limits their ability to participate in the market.

A source familiar with the process said discussions could continue as early as later on Tuesday, with some interested parties in Washington for the IMF/World Bank meetings.

The source said that, as has been the case in other recent debt negotiations, an asymmetry of information between the parties, including a lack of visibility among bondholders of the terms agreed with both the Paris Club and China, has complicated the negotiations.

CONTENTIOUS MLBs

Sri Lanka also disagreed with a proposal to link future repayments to bondholders to the country’s macroeconomic growth, through “macro-linked bonds” or MLB for short.

It said it was seeking more protections if Sri Lanka’s economy were to underperform IMF growth projections, and a “test” for triggering both the upward and downward adjustments in the MLB.

Disappointment that a deal had not yet been reached sent Sri Lanka’s bonds down about 2.5 cents , , leaving them at just over half their original face value at between 54 and 55.4 cents on the dollar.

“Completing the IMF review by June becomes difficult now because there will have to be more talks,” said Udeeshan Jonas, chief strategist at equity research firm CAL Group.

IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Sri Lanka plunged into its worst financial crisis since independence from the British in 1948 after its foreign exchange reserves fell in early 2022 leaving it unable to pay for essentials including fuel, cooking gas, and medicine.

The island nation defaulted on its foreign debt in May 2022 and kicked off negotiations with bilateral creditors several months later, eventually securing an agreement in principle with China, India and the Paris Club last November.

Sri Lanka also needs agreements with each of the bilateral creditors, including the Export-Import Bank of China, to complete the IMF review process.

Supported by the IMF program, Sri Lanka has seen its once soaring inflation moderate to 0.9% in March and its currency strengthen 7.6% so far this year. The economy is expected to return to growth after contracting 2.3% in 2023.

It is one of several poorer countries that have been hit by debt crisis in recent years and were struggling to put it behind.

Ghana this week has also seen its $13 billion restructuring talks stumble after the IMF indicated that the deal it was hoping to strike with bondholders would not be enough to make its debt levels sustainable again.

Viktor Szabo, an emerging market debt portfolio manager at Abrdn in London, said Sri Lanka’s setback was likely to be just a delay rather than a deal-breaker.

“It is moving in the right direction,” Szabo said. “But it is just a bit slower than expected.”

The Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Aviation has announced plans to revise the land boundaries of Mannar Port due to issues with the previously gazetted limits. Secretary K.D.S. Ruwan Chandra stated that the new boundaries, to be published in the Gazette, will exclude the Mannar Naval Base, unlike the previous limits.