After going round in circles in 2016, which way(s) will the government go in 2017?

by Rajan Philips-January 7, 2017

Even the most ardent supporters of the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government would have been disappointed with the government’s performance in 2016, and many of them would be hoping for some positive turnarounds in the New Year that is just starting. The government’s meandering ways over the last two years are arguably the result of the mismatch between the unique expectations that were created and confirmed by the 2015 January presidential election, on the one hand, and the peculiar composition of government that took office after the election, on the other. After initially emerging as a minority government, the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe (S-W) government was expanded following the August 2015 parliamentary election to include a sizable chunk of the SLFP that was defeated in both the January and the August elections. This ‘peculiar’ composition would seem to have affected the government’s ability to satisfactorily meet the people’s expectations raised at the January 2015 election.

After going round in circles in 2016.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd