Shadow of JRJ hovers over promises and realities of governance

One cannot help but admire Comrade Tilvin Silva, the General Secretary of the JVP and a founding father of the National People's Power (NPP).

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He has a knack of being truthful, a very admirable but rare trait among politicians in our country. Way back in November 2024, Tilvin said in an interview with this newspaper his party was not expecting unlimited power, but a simple majority in parliament.

It may have been with this thought in mind that the NPP during its election campaign made so many promises which it could not have kept with a simple majority in parliament. The NPP could then have blamed its limited numbers in parliament for its inability to fulfill its promises to the electorate.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. The electorate, tired of the corruption-ridden 'normal suspects' who have misruled our country since independence, decided to give the untested and untried NPP a massive two-thirds majority in parliament to implement its programme.

And therein lies the NPP's problem. The NPP, as Tilvin Silva admitted, did not expect such a broad mandate.

Among the many promises the NPP made, and we all believed it would keep, was to scrap the Executive Presidency brought in by late president J.R. Jayawardene, who enjoyed a 5/6th majority in parliament and used this majority to install himself as the executive head of state.