State capture: Lal Kantha's prescription not valid

Agriculture Minister K.D. Lal Kantha's recent remarks on 'state capture' have struck a chord in the country.

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The Government is unable to perform at the desired pace because the country's institutional mechanism is not fully cooperative with it.

In fact, the State has, over decades, been captured by narrow political and business interests, hollowing out public institutions and eroding public trust. The people's verdict during the 2022 uprising and subsequent elections was, in many ways, an indictment of this very capture.

Only countries with robust institutional mechanisms have developed. As such, there is a need for correction in Sri Lanka. Actually, people expected it from this Government. However, the minister's remarks cannot be validated.

Lal Kantha's rhetoric, and the broader ideological direction of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), increasingly suggests that the antidote to state capture lies in a highly centralised, ideologically driven, single-party model of governance. That proposition is not only impractical but fundamentally incompatible with Sri Lanka's democratic fabric.