Politics flare...

Dr. de Silva was visibly irked with Kumarasinghe’s remarks and could be seen animatedly engaging in conversation with Dr. Coomaraswamy whenever Kumarasinghe made an odd or overly political statement.

Dr. de Silva admitted that several remarks from the audience as well as fellow panellist Dr. Coomaraswamy on the trust and policy execution deficit of the government were true to some extent.

“It takes time to build trust and I said that I will deliver. I have delivered some. I was elected in August 2015. So we can’t undo in less than 30 months what was done over 120 months,” he said. However, on the more political statements and accusations made by Kumarasinghe and members of the audience, Dr. de Silva was less agreeable.

“I came here for a technical, intellectual discussion on the way forward. This is not a political platform. But if you want, I too can be political,” he said.

He outlined how no one could raise their voices or protest during the past regime, for fear of getting shot or getting kidnapped in white vans by death squads.

SLEA President Dr. Upananda Vidanapathirana, in an attempt to diffuse the situation, intervened and said that the SLEA has never been a platform for making political statements. Towards the latter part of the event, Kumarasinghe multiple times said that he had not made a political speech.

Prof. Sirimevan Colombage, who was in the audience, reminded that this turn of events was perhaps, inevitable.

“We are in a political economy. Sometimes, people forget the politics,” he said. In fact, the World Economic Forum and renowned economists such as Prof. Dani Rodrik and Nobel Prize winner Prof. Richard Thaler, just to name a few, have attempted to restart the conversation that economists are ignoring its other social science cousins and are attempting