Sri Lanka brief – politics

Democracy

The Economist Intelligence Unit calculates a Democracy Index. It is based on the notion that there is more to democracy than elections. It is estimated based on five criteria – electoral process and pluralism; functioning of government; political participation: political culture; and civil liberties.

The index categorises 167 countries and territories into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.

On this basis:

Australia is a full democracy and ranks 13th in the world.
India is a flawed democracy, 47th in the world
Sri Lanka is a flawed democracy 56th in the world

Corruption

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranks 182 countries and territories worldwide by their perceived levels of public sector corruption.

Australia is ranked 12th out of the 182 countries and territories
India is ranked 91st
Sri Lanka is ranked 107th

According to Transparency International, Sri Lanka’s ranking reflects a positive climb from previous lows, butb the country still faces entrenched public-sector corruption.

Key Corruption Challenges include: Economic Governance Failures; Medical Procurement Scandals.

Human rights in Sri Lanka. Human Rights Watch Annual Report 2025

Sri Lankan politics changed course in September, when Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the left-wing National People’s Power (NPP) alliance was elected president, replacing Ranil Wickremesinghe. Dissanayake promised more equitable economic policies and pledged to address some longstanding human rights concerns including by fighting corruption and abolishing the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act.

However, like previous presidents, he has not supported accountability for large-scale violations that occurred during Sri Lanka’s 1983-2009 civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

In parliamentary elections on November 14, Dissanayake’s NPP won a large parliamentary majority.

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis became acute in 2022, after the government defaulted on its foreign debt, causing the number of people below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of US$2.15 a day to double to nearly 26 percent of the population. The United Nations found that the proportion of children suffering from stunting had increased. Many families struggled to access goods and services essential for their rights to education and health that the state previously provided.

In October, the UN Human Rights Council extended for one year the mandate of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor and report on human rights violations in Sri Lanka and collect evidence of alleged crimes committed during the country’s civil war to support future national and international prosecutions.

Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Two years after protests broke out over the economic emergency, some macroeconomic indicators had stabilized but millions continued to suffer acute harms to their economic, social, and cultural rights. The crisis was triggered by economic mismanagement by political leaders, according to a Supreme Court ruling. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) linked its $3 billion bailout to governance reform and measures to increase government revenue and control expenditure.

However, the policies pursued by the Wickremesinghe administration under the IMF program shifted the burden of recovery largely onto people with low incomes, eliminating subsidies and increasing regressive sales taxes. Many struggled to obtain their livelihoods and other rights amid high inflation and declining incomes. They found it difficult to access and afford health and education services – which had historically been strong in Sri Lanka – because of cuts to public spending and low government revenues. The IMF program includes a “social spending floor,” requiring that 0.6 percent of GDP be spent on social security programs, but that is less than developing countries’ average of 1.6 percent.

A politics report by International Crisis Group

Sri Lanka’s Bumpy Road to a Political Reset

Twin elections in 2024 transformed Sri Lanka’s political landscape, bringing to power a president and parliamentarians who pledged sweeping reforms. So far, however, the new government has made little progress toward this end. It has work to do to show it can do politics differently.

What’s new? Almost eighteen months into its term in office, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) government has kept Sri Lanka’s economic recovery on track and made notable efforts to fight corruption. But it faces growing questions about its ability and commitment to achieve its bold promises of “system change”.

Why does it matter? Dissanayake’s election in September 2024 and the NPP’s subsequent parliamentary majority created a rare opening to address the country’s most important and intractable governance problems. Failure to achieve a substantial portion of their ambitious agenda threatens to open the way to a return to ethnic tensions and political authoritarianism.

What should be done? To regain momentum for reform, Dissanayake’s government should reinforce its anti-impunity campaign through investigations of wartime atrocities; adopt a more inclusive, less defensive style of governance; strengthen independent oversight of the state; end abuses of counter-terrorism policing; and do more to protect the most economically vulnerable.