By – Robinhood
The government defended Kumara Jayakody through the no-confidence motion and won. Then he resigned anyway. That sequence should trouble every Sri Lankan more than the motion itself.
It means the defence was performative. Parliament was used as a shield, not a verdict. The government whipped its members into line, survived the vote, and then quietly allowed the minister and his secretary to walk out the door. If Jayakody was worth defending publicly, he was worth keeping. If he was not worth keeping, he was not worth defending. The government cannot claim both positions simultaneously.
What forced the eventual resignation was not parliamentary process. It was continued public pressure that made the political cost of retention unsustainable.
The same pressure works elsewhere. Sriyan Cooray, Chairman of NDB Bank, has not appeared before the public to explain how 13.2 billion rupees disappeared under his watch.
He has not found time to face his depositors. That silence should be as politically costly as any no-confidence motion applied through every media appearance, every public forum, every shareholder meeting until he answers.
Sri Lanka’s rogue think tanks, which sell sponsored conclusions dressed as independent analysis, and media houses that protect advertisers instead of informing the public, operate on the same assumption every discredited politician once held, that the public will eventually look away.
Jayakody’s resignation proves that assumption has an expiry date. The public’s job now is to make sure every other protected figure in this country discovers theirs.