• Trump’s midterm setback shows cost of living decides elections
• NPP diplomacy leans on New Delhi and Beijing, not Washington
• Aswesuma complaints follow Govt. MPs into Pelawatte Headquarters
• Govt. concedes three changes to organised crimes bill
• Speaker’s no-confidence motion blocked as tempers flare in House
• SLPP heads for villages while Namal remains in remand

When President Anura Kumara Dissanayake rises in Parliament on Thursday (12) to deliver Budget 2027 as Minister of Finance, he will be presenting the National People’s Power (NPP) Government’s third full budget. 

The first, in February 2025, came from a Government still finding its feet after a vote on account had kept the State running; the second, last November, from an administration that had steadied the economy and was eager to move from stabilisation to growth. The third, however, will be judged by a less forgiving audience: households that have watched prices begin to climb again.

Not surprisingly, the Government has been preparing the ground. At a rally in Akuressa in September, the President said that certain taxes would be removed through the Budget, and late last month, at the National Intellectuals Organisation convention in Colombo, he pledged further tax cuts without jeopardising the revenue target, reminding his audience that not a single new tax had been imposed since the NPP came to power. 

According to officials, public sector salaries will also rise by between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 80,000 in the final instalment of the three-phase increase, at a cost of Rs. 330 billion. Welfare spending, covering Aswesuma, assistance for elders and persons with disabilities, the fertiliser subsidy, and Mahapola, is expected to exceed Rs. 1.2 trillion, pensions will absorb a further Rs. 500 billion, and the fuel subsidy is likely to continue.

At the same time, the Appropriation Bill raises capital expenditure by 24.7% to Rs. 1.753 trillion, within a total outlay of Rs. 4.99 trillion. On paper, therefore, the Government wants to be remembered for roads and railways rather than handouts. Yet capital allocations, under this Government and its predecessors alike, have a habit of being announced with fanfare and sacrificed when the books need balancing.

In other words, the NPP must do two things at once: offer relief to a public whose patience is wearing thin, and prove that it is capable of more than relief. The President seemed to acknowledge as much last month, when he described the record current account surplus of $ 1.8 billion as economic progress rather than economic transformation. As it happens, a reminder of what befalls governments that misjudge the public mood arrived from Washington last week.

Trump’s setback and lesson for Colombo

The setback suffered by US President Donald Trump in last week’s midterm elections offers a lesson for governments everywhere, including the NPP: economic policies and international decisions eventually have consequences at home. The Democrats’ victory in both chambers of Congress has weakened Trump’s position, with dissatisfaction over the cost of living, inflation, and the conflict involving Iran contributing to the Republican losses.

For President Dissanayake, it is a reminder that economic stability alone cannot guarantee public confidence. However, there is a second lesson. Decisions taken in Washington, New Delhi, Beijing, and Brussels directly influence Sri Lanka’s exports, investment, and jobs. Nearly two years into the NPP administration, the question is whether the Government has converted diplomatic engagement into tangible economic opportunity.

The President’s engagements since assuming office reveal a strong emphasis on the two regional powers. His first official overseas visit was to India in December 2024. He then visited China in January 2025, where he met President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang and signed 15 memoranda and cooperation arrangements, including a proposed $ 3.7 billion export-oriented refinery in Hambantota. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a State visit to Colombo in April 2025, the first by a foreign leader under Dissanayake, and they met again in New Delhi in February this year at the India AI Impact Summit. In all, at least three direct meetings with Modi can be identified from official records, compared with one documented bilateral meeting with Xi.

Meeting frequency does not necessarily indicate dependence. Nevertheless, Sri Lanka cannot afford to neglect Washington, Brussels, Tokyo, London, or the Gulf while it concentrates on its neighbourhood.

Why Washington deserves more attention

According to Sri Lanka’s Embassy in Washington DC, the US took approximately 24% of the country’s exports in 2025, worth about $ 3 billion, making it the largest single-country market. The apparel sector alone sent around $ 1.95 billion there, nearly 39% of its total exports. 

However, the Government’s publicly documented engagement with Washington at the highest level has been far thinner than with New Delhi. Relations have not deteriorated, but Trump’s tariffs have already shown how exposed export economies are, and last week’s results show how quickly Washington’s politics can change. 

Sri Lanka must therefore cultivate not only the White House but also Congress, trade authorities, investors, and American business organisations. For the NPP, this is not merely a diplomatic nicety; it concerns the jobs that the apparel industry sustains in towns and villages across the country.

Elsewhere, competitors are moving ahead. Closer trade ties between India and the European Union threaten Sri Lankan apparel even with the Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+); the Free Trade Agreement with Thailand, signed in 2024, is still not operational; and the bid to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership remains incomplete. 

Recent disclosures by the Department of Commerce showed that only 33 commercial officers were serving in missions across 28 countries. For an economy that urgently needs investment and new markets, that is a thin line of defence, and missions cannot deliver results unless they are given the capacity and measurable economic targets to do so, along with far closer coordination between the Foreign Ministry, the Board of Investment, and the Export Development Board. 

The question for Thursday, therefore, is whether the budget will contain an international economic strategy at all, or whether foreign policy will once again be treated as separate from the difficulties facing ordinary people.

Aswesuma troubles reach NPP Headquarters

If the President needs a reminder of how quickly welfare can become a political liability, he need look no further than his own party. The newly published Aswesuma beneficiary list has left several Government Members of Parliament (MPs) fielding complaints from constituents who say they have been left out.

The issue even surfaced at the NPP’s Pelawatte Headquarters, where Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Anil Jayantha Fernando had gathered party MPs for a briefing on the budget. Although the meeting was meant to focus on the budget, it was not long before the MPs raised the difficulties they had been facing over the revised list.

“We can hardly attend our public days these days. There are so many complaints about Aswesuma benefits being cut,” Kalutara District MP Chandima Hettiaratchi told the Deputy Minister.

Galle District MP Nishantha Samaraweera was quick to agree. “That’s true. Most of the complaints we receive during our public days these days are about Aswesuma,” he added.

With the MPs clearly looking for answers, Fernando explained what had happened. “Let me explain this properly. We had been receiving complaints that some people who genuinely deserved Aswesuma were not getting it, while others who were not eligible were receiving benefits. That was why we decided to conduct a fresh survey,” he said. 

The existing list had been kept unchanged while fresh applications were called. Around 3.2 million applications had been received, of which approximately 2.4 million had been considered in the initial assessment, and around 990,000 beneficiaries had been selected under the Extremely Poor and Poor categories.

That prompted another question, this time from MP Ruwan Mapalagama. “Why did we go ahead with surveying only 2.4 million applications without completing all 3.2 million? What happens to the rest?” he asked.

Fernando said that the Government had been working against a deadline. “We had to publish the new list at the beginning of November. There was a specific timeframe, so we had no choice but to release the list of those whose assessments had already been completed. That is what we did,” he said. 

A second list is to follow in December. “By December, we expect to complete the remaining assessments and identify all those who qualify. Those who are not selected will also have an opportunity to appeal,” he explained.

He also pointed out that the number of beneficiaries had initially been restricted under a gazette notification, although the intention was to reach those who genuinely needed help. “If there are shortcomings in the selection criteria, we can make the necessary changes later. What matters is that we identify the most deserving people and provide them with assistance,” he said, adding that the new survey had helped find deserving households that had previously been excluded.

For the MPs, however, the immediate concern was how to answer the questions awaiting them at their next public day. Therein lies the lesson for the budget. Targeting welfare is sound policy, yet a reform rushed out with a quarter of the applications still unassessed can easily look like a cut to the families waiting outside an MP’s office. 

With an Aswesuma allocation of about Rs. 240 billion expected next year, the Government will need to explain not only how much it is spending, but also who is being left out, and why.

Anti-Buddhist narrative

Meanwhile, the Government is fighting another battle for the goodwill of the clergy. Efforts to portray it as hostile to Sinhalese Buddhists have reportedly gathered momentum, with Opposition groups seeking statements from senior clergy to reinforce the narrative. According to Government sources, attempts to obtain such statements from the Mahanayake Theras have failed to produce the desired outcome.

Instead, the Government claims the controversy has drawn monks closer. The matter came up in a conversation between MP Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi and Minister Bimal Rathnayake. Arachchi observed that even monks serving in village temples had begun contacting their local elected representatives for clarification on the allegations. These conversations, he said, had helped clear up certain misunderstandings while opening the door to broader political discussion, and some monks had since formed a more favourable impression of the Government.

Rathnayake agreed. “That’s true, Comrade Lakshman. Some monks contacted me as well and asked about these allegations. Once we explained the situation, they understood it quite well. In fact, some even criticised the Opposition. It now appears that the anti-Buddhist campaign they attempted to build against us could end up backfiring on them,” he was quoted as saying.

The two then turned to the anti-drug initiative Ratama Ekata (The Nation United), which, they said, had won support from monks, businesspeople, doctors, engineers, and teachers alike. Arachchi recalled a woman in a village in the Kesbewa area who approached him. 

“MP, we have someone in our family who is constantly ending up in prison. We simply cannot reform him. Even when we bring him home, it makes no difference because people around here get him back into drugs. We will fully support you if you can eliminate this drug problem,” she had told him. Families who had lived with addiction, the MP observed, were particularly supportive of efforts to dismantle trafficking networks.

To mark the programme’s first anniversary, the President instructed officials to bring together religious leaders of all faiths, and plans were made for a gathering at Temple Trees of about 2,000 Buddhist monks and 1,000 leaders of other faiths, along with officers of the armed forces and the Police, jointly organised by the Presidential Secretariat, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Department of Government Information. 

District coordinating committee chairpersons were to liaise with temples and other religious institutions, and the aim was to brief religious leaders on the programme’s first year and enlist them in mobilising villages against drug trafficking and organised crime. However, some sections of the clergy objected and attempts were reportedly made to encourage a boycott, prompting the organisers to ask why anyone would boycott a gathering against drug abuse.

Three concessions on organised crimes bill

The gathering went ahead on Wednesday (4), and the President used it to announce that the Government would make three amendments to the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill following challenges before the Supreme Court. 

According to reports, the 72-hour detention period will be cut to 48 hours, the provision on identifying international gangs by their tattoos will be dropped if unnecessary for Sri Lanka, and offences under the Excise Ordinance will be excluded. He insisted, nonetheless, that strong legislation was needed and that suspects must be dealt with through the courts.

The concessions are welcome. Yet they came with a less noticed shift. At the same event, the President said that the Government intended to substantially weaken the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). In June, he had pledged in Parliament to repeal it within the year. Only days earlier, Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala had admitted that alleged gang leaders were being held under the very PTA the Government had promised to abolish, while predicting that the organised crimes bill would pass within a month. 

With the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill also before the courts, and with rights groups and a protest outside the British Parliament on 1 November calling for both new laws to be withdrawn, the Government can expect the scrutiny to continue. The distance between repealing and weakening is not merely semantic, and a Government elected to end the abuse of such laws will find that its credibility on the economy and on rights is drawn from the same well.

NCM that will not go away

If the Government hopes to enter the budget debate with a calm House, Tuesday’s (3) scenes in Parliament suggest otherwise. The day had originally been set aside for the debate on the Opposition’s No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against Speaker Dr. Jagath Wickramaratne. Instead, the House was treated to an adjournment debate, a row over parliamentary privileges, and, according to reports, an attempt by some Opposition MPs to seize the ceremonial mace.

The motion itself is not new. It was handed over to the Secretary General of Parliament on 9 October, signed by 44 Opposition MPs including Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, and entered in the Order Book on 12 October. 

It contains around 50 charges, several of which go to the heart of how public money is spent. Among them, the Speaker is accused of obtaining a second official residence at Lauries Lane, Colombo 4, in addition to his official residence in Rajamalwatta, of charging its upkeep to Parliament through an eight-member personal staff costing more than Rs. 760,000 a month, and of using more vehicles and fuel than he was entitled to. Some of these allegations are already before the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, following a complaint by suspended Deputy Secretary General of Parliament Chaminda Kularatne.

When the motion was first submitted, the NPP was quick to say it would stand by the Speaker, while leaving room to reconsider should investigations substantiate the allegations. Yet its approach soon changed. At the Committee on Parliamentary Business on 16 October, Government members proposed referring the motion to the Attorney General. A week later, they argued that a referral was unnecessary because certain sections were sub judice, in view of Kularatne’s court challenge to his suspension, and insisted on a revised motion. 

The Opposition was given until 28 October to comply; it refused, and the debate scheduled for 3 November was dropped. Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath explained that the Government wanted only the court-related sections removed. “We were fine with the rest of the text,” he said.

The Opposition sees it differently. Chief Opposition Whip Gayantha Karunatilleka argued that since the motion had been accepted into the Order Book, any concern over its legality should have been raised then. The Opposition has also pointed out that the NCM against former Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena had been debated over three days in March 2024, despite related court cases. Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Ajith P. Perera warned that if the debate was blocked, the Opposition would raise the charges every day Parliament sat.

That warning was put to the test on Tuesday. Deputy Speaker Rizvie Salih declined to allow several privilege issues, including the rejection of the motion, to be raised immediately, saying the submissions had reached him only after 9 a.m. and that he needed time to examine them. Premadasa responded that the refusal violated parliamentary privileges and democratic principles, and called for an inquiry into whether blocking the debate amounted to a breach of privilege.

Leader of the House Bimal Rathnayake said that time could still be found before the Budget debate if a revised motion complied with the Standing Orders. However, with the speech on Thursday and the second reading debate the day after, that window is all but closed.

The episode matters for reasons beyond parliamentary theatre. Parliament is the arm of the State entrusted with control over public finance, and over the next five weeks it will scrutinise nearly Rs. 5 trillion in spending under a Speaker accused of misusing public resources. He is also the second Speaker the NPP has had to defend; the first, Asoka Ranwala, resigned in December 2024, less than a month after his election, amid questions over his academic qualifications. 

A Government with a two-thirds majority would lose nothing by allowing the debate and winning the vote. By avoiding it, however, it risks handing the Opposition a grievance that is far easier to explain in the villages than any line in the budget.

SLPP: Will the remaining seniors walk away?

On the other side of the House, the budget arrives at an awkward moment for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). Its National Organiser Namal Rajapaksa secured bail in the Krrish case on Tuesday (3), the court accepting his parents’ serious health conditions as exceptional circumstances, but he remained behind bars over the alleged Airbus bribery scandal, with the next hearing scheduled for 19 November.

Meanwhile, the party faces a challenge of its own: holding on to its remaining seniors and the grassroots network that once made it so formidable. 

Last Sunday (1), former Minister and SLPP Head of Operations Johnston Fernando announced an islandwide programme of village meetings, beginning in the Colombo District the next day under Namal’s guidance. Meetings are to be held five days a week, and organisers have been told to raise the release of 323 containers, alleged irregularities in coal procurement, the reported Central Bank hacking incident, and the Government’s election promises on tax relief for essential goods, healthcare, and school supplies. The budget, whatever it contains, will give them fresh material.

Yet Fernando’s announcement raises an uncomfortable question. Before the SLPP can win back lost voters, can it keep the politicians and organisers who remain? 

The party now appears to rely heavily on Namal, with only a handful of seniors visibly involved. Where, one might ask, are the former ministers and political heavyweights who enjoyed years of power under the Rajapaksa administration, and what role are they playing in rebuilding the party that shaped their careers? 

The question is all the more pertinent because Namal, among the youngest of the party’s prominent leaders, is expected to revive an organisation that once operated under the authority of his father, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Names such as Kanchana Wijesekera and Ramesh Pathirana have surfaced as possible stand-ins during Namal’s absence, although no leadership change has been established, while Rohitha Abeygunawardhana remains among the few seniors visibly active.

The broader question, therefore, is whether the party’s experienced politicians are prepared to work together towards its revival, or whether some are content to remain on the sidelines until its future becomes clearer. Without a clear decision-making authority, the damage could be greatest at district and village level, where organisers depend on senior figures for direction. 

Grassroots networks are not sustained by announcements from Colombo; they depend on local relationships and politicians willing to stay active in opposition. If the remaining seniors drift away, the loss would extend well beyond a few familiar faces, because organisers and supporters who have stayed loyal through successive defeats may well follow. 

For Fernando, then, the challenge is not simply to organise five meetings a week; it is to show that the SLPP still has the leadership and commitment to sustain such a campaign. The SLPP once had senior politicians competing for influence. Today, the question is how many are prepared to take responsibility for rebuilding it, and Namal’s legal difficulties have only made that question more pressing.

What Thursday must prove

Taken together, the week carries a single message. Washington has shown how quickly voters punish a government when the cost of living outweighs the headline numbers. Pelawatte has shown that well-intentioned welfare reform can arrive at an MP’s door as a grievance. Temple Trees has shown a Government willing to adjust, even as its PTA promise quietly shifts. And the SLPP, however weakened, is already preparing to turn every shortfall into a talking point in the villages.

The President has said it himself: progress is not the same as transformation. Budget 2027, therefore, cannot be another exercise in appeasement. 

Tax relief and the final pay instalment will be welcome, because families are struggling. However, without a credible plan for capital spending that is actually spent, for exports beyond familiar markets, and for investment that is genuinely new, it will be remembered as one more budget that bought time rather than built a future. 

So, when the President rises on Thursday, he will be doing more than reading out numbers. He will be telling the country whether the NPP came to power to run the old system more honestly, or to change it.