The National Election Commission of Sri Lanka has announced that any individual will be allowed to inspect and file complaints regarding the campaign income and expenditure reports submitted so far by candidates contesting the recent local government elections.

Accordingly, certified copies of the campaign finance reports will be made available for public inspection at district election offices starting from June 7th, during official working days from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

This decision has been taken under Section 6 of the Regulation of Election Expenditure Act, No. 3 of 2023, which mandates that candidates submit detailed reports of their campaign income and expenses.

Chairman of the National Election Commission, R.M.A.L. Rathnayake stated that legal action will be taken against individuals who fail to submit their campaign finance reports in accordance with the law.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, is expected to visit Sri Lanka later this month. This will be an important visit as he will be seeking to assess the progress that the new government has made in implementing resolutions passed by the UN Human Rights Commission which his office facilitates. The last such visit was by former High Commissioner Al Hussein in February 2016, during the period of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government. At that time the relations between the Sri Lankan government and the UN Human Rights High Commissioner’s office were mutually supportive as the Sri Lankan government had co-sponsored UNHRC Resolution 30/1 which specifically included international participation in the transitional justice process.

The UN Human Rights High Commissioner’s visit on this occasion comes at a critical time, as the NPP government faces ongoing international pressure to address long-standing human rights concerns. Particularly controversial has been the Sri Lanka Accountability Project of the High Commissioner’s office (OHCHR), which has established an external mechanism for gathering evidence related to alleged human rights violations. The three successive governments that have had to face this issue have all strongly registered their opposition to it. As of 5 July 2024, the OHCHR repository established under this initiative contained 96,215 individual items that can be used for accountability processes gathered from over 470 sources, including international and multilateral organisations.

In the present international context, ethnic cleansing and war crimes are taking place in the public gaze of the world in a manner that is anathema to the international human rights community. There are governments in many countries and international organisations that continue to believe in the ideal of a Rules-based International Order. They would wish to show the world that they continue to stand by those values which have contributed to make the world a more just and less brutal place. Sri Lanka depends on international trade and development aid. These benefits are often conditional on demonstrating adherence to international human rights norms. By addressing the UNHRC recommendations the government will not only improve its international relations but also foster internal healing and stability.

Ethnic Partnership

Meeting the challenge of High Commissioner Türk’s visit will, however, not be an easy one for the NPP government. So far the government appears to have done little in its first six months in office to address the outstanding issues in the presently operating UNHRC resolution. The most recent UNHRC resolution concerning Sri Lanka is Resolution 51/1, adopted on October 6, 2022, which focuses on “Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka”. This resolution builds upon previous ones which brought up issues of missing persons, long term prisoners held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), continued militarisation of the north and east after the end of the war and the military occupation of civilian lands. While there has been some progress in the return of land there has been no significant movement on many of the other matters.

The government also finds itself in the position of having to explain the non-implementation of its own manifesto in relation to the ethnic conflict and national reconciliation. The NPP manifesto which was published before the presidential election has several commendable pledges which, if implemented without delay, would contribute in great measure to the national reconciliation process. These include “Abolition of all oppressive laws including the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and ensuring civil rights of people in all parts of the country” and “Releasing of all political prisoners and ensuring their free socialisation”. The failure to move forward these pledges makes the government vulnerable to the criticism, which is now being made by Tamil political parties, that it is no different to previous governments which also failed to deliver on their promises.

The most important of the NPP pledges is to be found in Section 4.9 titled “A Sri Lankan Nation- The Universal Citizen”, where the manifesto puts forward as its first principle the concept of “Political partnership of all ethnicities.” In practice this is not working out. Recently, the Tamil media reported that the Palmyrah Development Board which is based in Jaffna had experienced a serious rupture with three independent board members from Jaffna resigning in protest, two of them being professors from Jaffna University. They felt that their views were disregarded and no translation facilities were provided for them when they met the minister in Colombo. Working in partnership with those from different parts of the country, with different ethnicity and language, requires sensitivity and engaging in dialogue and deciding together if it is to be a reality.

Need Partnership

Another example of lack of consultation and absence of partnership was the recently cancelled gazette notification regarding the vesting of vacant land in the north in the state unless the owners claimed it in three months. It is likely that this land takeover law contributed to the diminution of NPP votes at the local government election. Gazette No. 2430, issued on 28 March 2025, gave landowners in the north three months to assert ownership claims before their lands were declared state property. This was said to be under a colonial law enacted by the British to dispossess people lacking formal title. This gave rise to concerns that its enforcement now signaled a broader effort to legitimise taking land from the people in Tamil-majority areas, including Mullivaikkal where the last battles of the war were fought, threatening further displacement, undermining resettlement, and blocking memorialisation.

What is noteworthy however, is that despite these actions the government still for all obtained more votes in the north and east than any previous government. This is because the ethnic minorities, in the same way as the ethnic majority, want a system change in the way they are governed so that the country may develop and all people may prosper. The fact that politicians at the highest level are now being found guilty of corruption by the courts of law and that there is an enabling environment for independence of the judiciary is a major plus point. This is a unique strength the NPP government has and which it needs to use to the full to win and consolidate the support of the ethnic minorities.

Facing the challenge of the UN Human Rights system also requires the support of the representatives of the ethnic (and religious) minorities. If they are opposed to the government or take up positions contrary to it, Sri Lanka will continue to remain under international pressure. The next renewal or extension of the UNHRC resolution is expected to occur in September or October 2025. The trend line so far is that the resolutions get harder and harder. In Canada, a second genocide memorial is being planned, and this one will be in Canada’s largest city of Toronto. The Sri Lankan government cannot overcome these challenges by itself, but it can fare better if it has the ethnic minorities on its side in a “political partnership of all ethnicities” as promised in the NPP manifesto.

Several Sri Lanka parliamentarians have participated in a capacity building programme in India organized by the Lok Sabha Secretariat’s Bureau of Parliamentary Studies and Training (BPST).

The programme included discussions on anti-defection law, role of Whips, legislative and budgetary process, parliamentary privileges and ethics, interactions with print and electronic media, and visits to Delhi Metro Corporation, IIT Delhi, and IT Parks.

“These sessions aim to strengthen institutional knowledge, improve democratic practices, and share best practices across Parliaments,” parliament said in a statement.

“The participation of the Sri Lankan delegation in this programme marks a significant step in enhancing Parliamentary diplomacy, reinforcing mutual understanding, and fostering long-term cooperation between India and Sri Lanka.”

The team included Rizvie Salih, Hemali Weerasekara, legislators representing the Speaker’s Panel of Chairs; chairmen of the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) and the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE); and other government and opposition MPs.

The parliament secretary-general and officials accompanied them.

The programme started at the Parliament Library Building in New Delhi, followed by visits to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, the Central Hall of the Samvidhan Sabha, and Prerna Sthal.

The delegation participated in Financial Committees in the Indian Parliament which outlined the core financial committees, especially the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is chaired by the senior Opposition Leader.

The Departmentally Related Standing Committees (DRSCs) session explained how these committees analyze the demands for grants submitted by ministries in the appropriation bill.

The Parliamentary Questions and Public Importance Matters session highlighted that 20 questions are permitted each day during Question Hour. Ministers are granted 14 days of notice to respond, and written answers are laid on the Table of the House by 10:30 a.m.

The engagements offered insight into India’s oversight and legislative systems, enabling comparison and learning opportunities for the Sri Lankan parliamentarians.

The delegation also visited the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) headquarters in Delhi, to study the digital infrastructure underpinning AADHAAR, India’s biometric identification system.

They met Speaker of the Lok Sabha Shri Om Birla, and visited the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS).

They also met India’s External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to discuss regional cooperation, India’s “Neighbourhood First” policy, and India’s continued support for Sri Lanka’s economic recovery.

Hundreds of people from Sri Lanka’s historically oppressed Malaiyaha (hill country) community held demonstrations to emphasize their basic rights as citizens of the country.

“We demand that Malaiyaha Tamil people be accepted as free and equal Sri Lankan citizens,” said Shalini Manori, a 54-year-old tea estate worker, who participated in the June 1 demonstration in Hatton town in the Nuwara Eliya District of Central Province.

The majority of the community’s 1.5 million people work in tea and rubber estates, contributing to the country’s crucial foreign exchange earnings as Sri Lanka accounts for close to 20 percent of global tea exports.

But its tea workers are landless and the poorest, and live under a constant threat of forced displacement as they lack land and housing rights, their leaders say. Most worker-families live on the estates in 400-square-foot rooms in abject poverty.

The demonstrators carried banners and raised slogans with the beating of drums to seek “assured rights” to housing and land, a living wage, protection of the law, and equal compensation for male and female workers.

More than 50 percent of tea plantation workers in the country are women from the Malaiyaha Tamil community.

“Women are overworked and underpaid,” Manori told UCA News, adding that the low salaries in the tea estates force them to take on extra work on weekends in farms, brick-kilns and other such informal sectors.

She said that women workers are often assigned backbreaking and low-valued tasks, such as tea leaf plucking and bush pruning, while they are already overburdened at home with child rearing and domestic chores.

The Malaiyaha Tamils are descendants of Indian indentured laborers who were brought in by the British to work on coffee, tea, and rubber plantations. Their socio-economic exclusion, marked by a prolonged period of statelessness and disenfranchisement, has led to poor human development indicators for the community.

The community has the worst figures for poverty in the country, with widespread child malnourishment, high rates of anemia among women, alcoholism among men, and low educational attainment.

In 2023, the Malaiyaha community undertook a nearly 300-kilometer journey, calling for recognition as free and equal citizens in the country.

Menaka Kandasamy of the Ceylon Workers Red Flag Union said the government has approved an increase in the daily wage of workers from 1,000 rupees to 1,700 rupees (US$5.66).

“But most of the estate companies do not pay even that to their workers,” she told UCA News.

Kandy-based activist Nilushi Synthiya said the average daily wage paid is around 1,350 rupees, but a family of four spends more than that due to the high cost of living in Sri Lanka.

Synthiya criticized the tea estate companies “for citing financial losses during wage negotiations, though they continue to record enormous profits.”

She also emphasized the urgent need to grant land and housing rights to the hill people and to accord them equal linguistic status to their Tamil language.

Global rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, and Front Line Defenders, have expressed concern for the Malaiyaha community.