NPP post polls: between optics and operationals

THE win this week of the National People's Power at the 2025 local government elections is not a black swan event although in many respects it is a departure from the norms.

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For one, successive previous administrations had postponed conducting LG polls since 2018 for one reason or another, citing lack of funds or being suspected of shying away from testing the people's will with no guarantee of victory.

In fact, they arguably reasoned that there could have been a devastating loss of face and attendant depredation of social credit to say nothing of political control if a defeat ensued.

For another, perhaps flying in the face of conventional wisdom, an NPP landslide was not assured despite its paradigm-busting burst of speed and energy in the presidential election of September 2024 and the hustings for the house in November of the same year.

If the unkept promises of the incumbent administration resulted in the attenuation of its previous popularity, it comes with the opportunity to course-correct if there is still sufficiently serious political will in government ranks.

Then again, it is a departure from the norms for those who feared that the ethos of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna à la its approach to student politics on state campuses and trade union agitation on the streets would dominate this election.

They were proven wrong because the JVP holding the reins of executive and legislative power appears to have transformed an allegedly 'Pol Pot-ist' party (see sundry sprees of accusations and aspersions on social media in the campaigning sprint) into a democratic movement that is fully socially integrated into the mainstream of politics.

Last not least, it may not be terribly insightful - leave alone quite accurate - to formularise the numbers and percentages, as if presidential wins alone (5,634,915; 42.31%) assure parliamentary majorities (6,863,186; 61.56%), which, in turn, trickle-down to local government levels (4,503,930; 43.26%).