Letter from Colombo
from Our Own Correspondent
BANKRUPT and with a political class to match, Sri Lanka was ready for radical change when it elected Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) as president last year. The new Jathika Jana Balawegaya or National People’s Power (NPP) government, the main component of which is the former Marxist revolutionary JVP, promised an end to corruption and nepotism, and already has one high-profile scalp.
Former president Ranil Wickremesinghe (2022-24) was arrested in August under the Public Property Act on charges that carry a maximum punishment of 20 years in jail. The allegation is that 16.9m Sri Lankan rupees in public funds — approximately £40,000 — were spent on a visit to the UK in September 2023, something Wickremesinghe denies.