Multiparty governance, IMF agreement and human rights risks

• Published date: 09 August 2022
• Publication title: Daily Financial Times

Most of the parliamentary Opposition having met with President Ranil Wickremesinghe over the last week, a week that saw escalating repression of the Aragalaya protesters, some have applauded the 'All/Multi-Party Governance' arrangement that the President has proffered to engage them in the task of economic stabilisation, reform and recovery.

The main Opposition the SJB's requests at the meeting for the revocation of the recently imposed Emergency regulations and a halt to the arrests, were not presented as conditional to their participation in a new mechanism of governance in Parliament. The President's reply, played on the evening news, seemed to indicate that he believed the retention of the draconian Emergency was necessary to prevent delays in passing new regulations for economic recovery that he envisaged as necessary, because, he said, 'if someone were to go to courts, it could take weeks'.

With the mainstream parliamentary Opposition deciding to consider the formula of an arrangement where the manifestly unpopular SLPP has a majority of seats in Parliament, together with the latter's choice of an unpopular, unelected President, both associated with bad policies and corruption on a very large scale, it is hardly the time to leave our destinies to the Parliament. It is now incumbent on civil...