Financial Times

Knocking on the doors of the UPFA

"We are in trouble, no?" was the crisp comment of a senior businessman last week after the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won power at the parliamentary polls.

However like most people and Sri Lanka's grand culture of "going with the winner" even if one supports the party out of power, businessmen will knock on the doors of the new regime - seeking tenders, contracts and offering bribes and expensive gifts to get things down.

The only problem - the JVP influence in the new government is most likely to change a common feature in the past 20 years - when the rich got richer and the poor, poorer while the middle class got squeezed.

As our cartoon depicts today, the JVP-SLFP regime is expected to give small industries and small businesses an equally prominent place in the sun.

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