The main Opposition party in the current Parliament, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), and other splinter groups secured half of the seats. As a result, the NPP must form a coalition with one of these parties to run the council. File
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Sri Lanka’s ruling National People’s Power (NPP) party won a local council election in the Southern Province, passing its first electoral test since winning the presidential election last month.

The Elpitiya local council elections were held on Saturday (October 26, 2024), and NPP — the broader front of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna — won 15 of the 30 seats.

The main Opposition party in the current Parliament, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), and other splinter groups secured half of the seats. As a result, the NPP must form a coalition with one of these parties to run the council.

However, the NPP is generally politically averse to forming alliances with other parties.

Alarmingly for the ruling party, their vote percentage has dropped compared to the presidential election, where the incumbent, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, was elected.

Since assuming office, Mr. Dissanayake has stayed on course with his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme. Sri Lanka is still in the process of recovering from its worst economic crisis in history.

Earlier in the week, the Washington-based global lender said it is in talks with Sri Lanka’s new administration on its priorities and working towards the next review to continue its Extended Fund Facility programme with the island nation.

Mr. Dissanayake has already set the next parliamentary election for November 14, 2024, seeking a mandate to form a stronger government without the need for coalition partners.

The current NPP government is being run with a three-member cabinet, which was their parliamentary strength when the 225-member Parliament came to be dissolved immediately after Mr. Dissanayake’s victory.

Representational image only. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Sri Lanka’s new government led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Monday (October 14, 2024) told the Supreme Court that it would reconsider the approval granted by the previous government to India’s Adani Group for a wind power project.

A five-member Supreme Court (SC) Bench was told on behalf of the attorney general that the decision to review the project had been taken at a Cabinet meeting held on October 7. “The final decision of the new government would be conveyed after the installation of the new Cabinet after the November 14 Parliamentary election,” the court was told.

President Dissanayake in the run-up to the September 21 Presidential election had pledged that his National People’s Power (NPP) alliance would annul the project. The NPP claimed that the project posed a threat to Sri Lanka’s energy sector sovereignty and promised that it would be cancelled in the event of their victory.

Colombo mulls converting Adani power project to a G2G deal: Sri Lankan media 

The Adani Group was set to invest more than $440 million in the 20-year agreement for the development of 484 megawatts of wind power in the northeastern regions of Mannar and Pooneryn. The project faced fundamental rights litigation in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.

Petitioners have raised environmental concerns and lack of transparency in the bidding process to grant Adani Green Energy the go-ahead. Petitioners have also argued that the agreed tariff of $0.0826 per kWh would be a loss to Sri Lanka and should be lowered to $0.005 per kWh.