Decisive leadership needed to ensure changing minority political representation does not hinder claims for rights and justice in Sri Lanka

• New report by Oxford Brookes University’s Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) and Minority Rights Group (MRG) comes with key recommendations

Sri Lanka’s local election results have corroborated the warnings of a new report on minority politics in the country.

Recent National People’s Power (NPP) losses in the North and East suggest that the NPP has not addressed core concerns of Tamil and Muslim communities despite its public stance on equality.

This underlines the findings of the new report by Oxford Brookes University’s Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) and Minority Rights Group (MRG): that firm commitments to minority rights must be made now for justice and equality in the long term.

Otherwise, Sri Lanka risks a renewal of ethnic grievances.

The vibrant and successful minority politics that Sri Lanka has experienced in the past decades is collapsing, crushed by years of structural majoritarian nationalism, ineffective leadership within minority parties, and the failure of national parties to put forward clear proposals on constitutional reform or power-sharing.

The failure of national parties to address the grievances that caused the country’s ethnic conflict is a major contributing factor to the crumbling of minority electoral representation.

Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist actors have implemented different strategies, from sowing division within ethnic minority parties to preventing them from acting in the interest of the communities they represent.

“The power minority representatives used to wield, in national parties and through their own, has disintegrated,” said the report’s lead researcher Dr. Farah Mihlar. “Minority political representation is divided, and parties have splintered, making it ever more difficult to raise minority rights and justice issues,” she added.

“The local election results show that minority communities are looking for credible commitments to rights, justice, and inclusion — not just broad promises of equality,” said MRG Sri Lanka Program Coordinator Vyshnavi Manogaran. “It is important that national parties take these concerns seriously and outline clear, long-term plans to address them. Minority parties also have a role to play in restoring trust — by strengthening internal leadership and creating space for women, youth, and underrepresented caste and community groups in decision-making.”

With its parliamentary majority, the NPP has shown a potential to transform the course of minority politics in Sri Lanka. Yet as the latest elections results reaffirm, their lack of clarity on core minority issues risks squandering this potential.

The report calls on the NPP to use its mandate to lead decisively on rights and justice for minorities.

“The NPP is championing an equal rights policy which would be remarkable, if well-implemented, but they need to also acknowledge that Sri Lanka has had a three-decade armed conflict which was based on ethnic grievances and rights issues. We know little of their plans to respond to this,” Dr. Mihlar added.

Following the NPP’s parliamentary majority and its more limited gains in recent local government elections, particularly in urban areas and Tamil and Muslim majority regions, the report highlights that ethnic minority political parties must confront these shifting political dynamics as well as their own internal shortcomings. The research also identifies how among both Sri Lankan and Malaiyaha Tamils, members of dominant castes take up much of the space for political representation, limiting opportunities for individuals from non-dominant communities to thrive within politics and other public spheres.

“Minority participation is a key component of any well-functioning democracy; it offers a peaceful mechanism to resolve the longstanding societal rifts that remain due to decades of ethnic internal conflict. Sri Lanka must take the long-term route to full inclusion if it is to achieve sustainable peace and development. This research makes it clear that the country is currently far off course,” said MRG Head of Asia, Yamini Ravindran.

The report recommends that the NPP use its parliamentary majority to reform the constitution to offer a lasting political solution to the conflict acceptable to all ethnic communities.

It further recommends the national mainstream parties develop and implement policies on minority inclusion and anti-discrimination that include at least a 20 per cent quota for nominating minority candidates and ensure future party manifestos have clear positions on minority rights and on a political solution to ethnic grievances.

‘Divided and weakened: The collapse of minority politics in Sri Lanka’ will be available free of charge at minorityrights.org

The report is an output of the ‘Minority Empowerment for Democracy and Pluralism,’ a two-year European Union-funded program that aims to strengthen political participation of minority groups in Sri Lanka. The program is jointly implemented by MRG, CENDEP at Oxford Brookes University, Human Development Organisation (HDO), Eastern Social Development Foundation (ESDF) and Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF).

MRG is the leading international human rights organisation working to secure the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, and indigenous peoples, and to promote understanding between communities. It is guided by the needs expressed by its worldwide network of over 300 partner organisations in more than 60 countries.

Founded in 1985, CENDEP is a multidisciplinary centre that brings together academics, development practitioners and policy makers.

Divided and weakened: The collapse of minority politics in Sri Lanka was funded by the European Union. The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of Oxford Brookes University and MRG and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.