BADULLA, October 19, 2026 — Addressing an NPP women’s conference in Badulla, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake defended his government’s crackdown on organised crime and corruption, pledged to respect judicial decisions and outlined education reforms, while accusing unnamed television channels of manufacturing public unrest.
The strength of women and the government’s victory
This is the occasion for our Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, our Minister of Women’s Affairs Saroja Paulraj, our Samantha Vidyaratne who provides leadership to the Badulla district, our sister Ambika who is the strongest female representation in this district, and the sisters elected today to represent the Executive Council of the Badulla District National People’s Power Women’s Organisation, the brothers and sisters present, mothers and daughters.
These days, a kind of panicky situation is being artificially created. Is it there in the villages? Is there unrest in the villages? All that unrest is only in the media, isn’t it? Is it in the villages? No. The force working strongly in the villages today is the National People’s Power, our government. Is there anything else in the villages? Nothing else. But within the media, an attempt is being made to show a kind of panicky situation. There are reasons for that.
Today we meet here in Badulla, and as we always say, our government was appointed by the people, the ordinary people. I think the main turning point in building our government was women joining together in one fist. Remember? As a result, we formed the government in September 2024. Therefore, the main force that formed our government is the women of this country, you. Not only that, I know it is also the women of this country who will protect this government and bring it victory after victory. What do you say? Yes.
A safe country for future generations and a new education
We know, looking at our sisters and our mothers from all sides, who do you have the most hopes for? For whom do you work most of your life? For whom do you carry the greatest burden on your head? For whom? Huh? For the children. Where do you set aside even your own life, your own fun and happiness? For whom? For the children. If a child gets sick, our sisters suffer more pain than if they themselves got sick. Why? For the children. When working hard to educate children, sometimes who works harder than the children themselves? Mothers. Why? Because they have great hopes and expectations for their children.
A government’s basic responsibility is to look after the people living at this moment. But at the same time, the main responsibility is building a safe and secure country for our future generation. That is what we consider the main responsibility of the National People’s Power government. How do we build the future generation? When I met the President of China, I asked him. China has today achieved a great victory, has become a powerful economic power in the world, has taken a huge leap in technology, and has captured a large share of the world market. I asked him, “What is the secret behind China achieving such a great victory?” He said, “The only secret is the result of the sacrifices made by our older generations.” So, he said, the main reason behind the victories China has achieved today is the older generation, the sacrifices they made with hope and expectation to build that country, which have brought China to this place today.
Now, what do we have? We too must dedicate ourselves, exert ourselves, and work hard for our future generation. We must be able to tell our future generation, “If you ask what the secret is of the victory you enjoy today, it is the result of the sacrifices our mothers, fathers, and elder generation made for this country.” That is what we need.
We have set our main target there. Where? We need to build a state where our future generation can live without fear, without suspicion, and without the despair of parents thinking within their hearts, ‘What will happen to our children?’ When building that, the main thing is that we must educate our children. Our mothers and fathers also exert themselves more for that. But in teaching, we know, our mothers exert great effort. Even so, we cannot be that satisfied with the results. For a long period of time, what our country needed was to change this old education system, which flows uniformly, does not add new knowledge, is not suited to the new world, and does not develop human connections and feelings between people.
As we exert ourselves to provide education to children, we also have a responsibility. What is it? What education are we giving? How are we teaching? How do we create a creative child who can compete with the most powerful labour market in the world? This is a new challenge for us. If the old education system does not build a future for our children, we need to move to a new education system. Our Ministry of Education, with the Prime Minister in charge, is exerting a special effort to bring a modern education model to our country instead of this old education system.
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Audio recording | October 18, 2026
We are starting new education reforms for Grade One as well as Grade Six in the coming month of January. We need a new education. Not only that, the new education system is integrated with technology. We have taken steps to provide the necessary technological tools from Treasury funds. Are smart boards needed? Are computers needed? Then are the signals needed for schools? I think we have now provided fibre facilities. Fibre has been given to about six thousand schools. We must integrate with new technology. Not only that, we have decided to recruit about 23,500 teachers. We have decided to recruit 1,515 academic staff of universities. We have decided to recruit 2,311 non-academic staff of universities. We must protect our children through human resources, physical resources and a modern education system. There, we have taken a very important step.
But what happens? Old things cannot be changed easily, like changing a garment. What happens when old things are changed? Old forces, old groups shout against it. I saw some people saying that if the new education reforms are brought, they will die on a hunger strike. Look at that. Why? They belong to the old world. So the transformation needed for a new world cannot be done easily. Why can’t it be done easily? The crowd of the old world, if they take this simply, will overturn the buckets. They will pull at your leg. They will not let you do it. But everyone must remember, this government is the people’s government. Whatever happens, we will do that work for the people’s children without rolling back the decisions taken. That is why we need people’s power.
Equal law for all and a safe society for children
Because these new changes will not be easily accepted by the old crowd. Next, when our children go out into the world, what kind of a future country are we giving our children? In every developed and accepted country in the world, there is a common denominator, a common idea. What is it? The law is applied equally in every country. Education reforms alone are not enough. The law and fairness in the country we are building must be built for our children. If the law is not built fairly, what happens? Those children are unsafe within that country. We can teach. Parents can look after their children under their own care. But if the child goes into society and it is a country where the law collapses, a country where a separate law is applied to each person, those children have no protection. Then, for those children to receive protection, what must happen? The law must be applied equally.
But in our country, equal law is not applied. What happens? The biggest thug connected to the political authority in the village cuts trees. Didn’t he cut? He cuts. But the law is not applied to him. Why? He is protected by political power. The biggest thug in the village who receives political protection illegally transports sand and does mining. Didn’t he? The law is not applied to that. Then the environmental system collapses. Remember, the biggest thug in the village who receives political protection illegally sells, distributes and refines drugs. The law is not applied. Why? There is political protection. Then, in such a country, do children have protection? No. For children and the whole society to have protection, the law must be applied equally to everyone.
What do you say? Should the law be applied selectively? Should the law be applied according to high and low status? Should the law be applied according to wealth? If so, what remains for our children is an unsafe country. So, if we are building a safe country for children, what must be done? Everyone is equal before the law. But that transformation is not easy. Why is it not easy? There were those who received protection from the law. There were those who escaped the law. There are those who receive privileges from the law. They will never agree to what? They are not agreeable to building a country with equal law. They need privileges from the law at all times. They need protection. They need safety. They must escape the law. The law must be applied only to those below. That is why there was an idea about the law in our country, like the law is a spider’s web. Spider’s webs exist, meaning small creatures get caught and large creatures break through. Wasn’t it like that? Our country’s law was like that. So, for the future of our children, we need to build a country where there is equal law for everyone. Do you want it or not? Tell me. We will build that, remember.
But what happens when building that? Those who received privileges from the old law, those who stood above the old law, become agitated. These days they are a little more agitated. Why? These days the law has reached those who thought the law would never reach them. They never had it. They have a vagabond’s pride, great power. What happens when the law comes to them? The law turns to ash. There was a crowd that thought it would not reach them. When the law reaches them, the law turns to ash, burns. But today it is not like that. Is it like that today? No, today the law is equal for everyone.
Then, those who received privileges from the old law, received protection from the law, and who think they will be punished before the law, what do they do? They start shouting against it. This is the situation. So, who is the final responsible party regarding the law? Parliament makes laws. The Attorney General’s Department and the Bribery Commission file cases according to those laws. The Bribery Commission, the CID and the police conduct the investigations necessary for those cases. In the end, who enforces that law and imposes punishment? The judiciary. In that judiciary too, who gives the final ruling regarding the law? The Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court gives a verdict. When a verdict is given, they shout saying no, cancel it. Then where is this law? A country cannot have such a law.
Therefore remember, we have given those institutions the necessary power to enforce the law. We believe the decisions given by the judicial system are the correct decisions regarding the law in this country. They can shout saying we do not consider it so. But we consider it, and in the end, we submit to the conclusion given by the Supreme Court. We submit to the decision given by the judiciary. Beyond that, do not expect any other decisions from us. What do you say? Is that needed? That is when a country with protection for children is built.
Eradicating the drug menace and the underworld
Next, what happened as a result of this collapse of the law? The underworld in our country and the spread of drugs began. These are the results of the law not being enforced. The law was not applied to the big people. The law gave protection. As soon as drugs were caught, they went and hugged the drug dealers. Some say these drug dealers are with us. These drug dealers pump money for elections to the political authority that protects them. They give vehicles for elections. They start shouting for elections. These drug and crime gangs grew with massive political protection.
What is happening today? Drugs are spreading to far-off villages. Therefore, a great demon is roaming in our society today to swallow our children. That demon is none other than drugs. I have records with me. On the fifth of this month, we expect to release. How many schoolchildren have we arrested? We have arrested girls who are studying. Let us accept, people in institutions and organisations that are highly respected have been arrested. People in our respected places have today become victims of this drug menace.
The entire society had become a tragedy. The police had become the prey of a handful. In the RMV, the Department of Motor Traffic too. In Immigration too. In Customs too. A small group. Therefore, while this state administration is like this, there is a separate state underneath. That underworld figure can go to the passport office and make three or four passports. That drug dealer can go to the RMV and get four or five number plates for the same vehicle. That drug dealer can go to Customs and get his drug container released. It has become like this. Why? This network is like this. This network has grown to this level.
Now I ask the mothers and sisters here. In such a society, do your children have protection? No matter how much you protect your child at home, a stage comes when the child must be released into society. The time when the mother follows behind comes to an end. The time the father fondles the child comes to an end. The child must be released into society as an independent child. But the society being released into is full of drugs, crime and the underworld. Now what must be done?
Our government started this campaign last year, a campaign to completely uproot this drug business. A campaign to destroy drugs that the whole country joins together for. What was the result? From October 30 last year to now, it is one year, we have seized 2,484 kilograms of heroin. Normally, a fertiliser bag is fifty kilograms, isn’t it? Now think about how many fertiliser bags 2,484 kilograms is like. A thousand kilograms is twenty. Two thousand is forty. Five hundred is ten. That means approximately fifty or sixty fertiliser bags of drugs. Think about what a disaster is before us. Normally, a packet of drugs is about half a teaspoon. Think about half a teaspoon times sixty fertiliser bags. How much destruction has taken place? The amount we seized is not the total amount.
We seized 3,301 kilograms of ice by yesterday. If a thousand is twenty fertiliser bags, three thousand is sixty. Three hundred is six. Sixty-six. Sixty-six fertiliser bags of drugs. That means, think of a lorry, the lorry that comes loaded with fertiliser, that much drugs. Where is the country? We seized 297 kilograms of cocaine. That is a figure for those a little above. Right? That too, about six fertiliser bags have been seized within this year. So what has happened? The country has grown into a massive disaster of drugs.
Not only drugs. There are armed criminals connected to it. They have weapons. They shoot here and there. They kill. We arrested ninety-three T-56 main automatic firearms. One hundred and forty pistols were seized within this year. One hundred and five revolvers were seized. What kind of a country are we releasing our children into? A country ridden with crime. Even today we arrested a person. He too had revolvers, pistols and so on. There is video footage of him shooting people for fun. That has happened on the Balummahara side, or the Kirindiwela side. This is where this country is. Now what must be done? If we are building a country with safety and protection for our children, we must destroy drugs and the underworld. Do we need to or not? We need to.
But what happens when doing it? There are those who received protection from that drug network, received protection from that underworld, received money, received vehicles, received houses. There is such a list. They become agitated. They become agitated and say, “Do not let the NPP government go any further.” Why? They get arrested. That is why this unrest is being created. Although there is no unrest in the villages, an artificial unrest is being created from above using two media channels. Those channels perhaps had a history of being accused. Remember, it is so. Not just saying. There was a history of these accusations being levelled.
I remember the former police media spokesman directly stated in a media channel that the owner, his relative, his brother, took money from Wele Suda. He was called for investigation. This is not during our government, it was before. He said in a media conference that he took money from Wele Suda. So all of them are the network connected to these crimes. There were politicians in it. There are black businessmen in it. There is the underworld in it. There are one or two media channels in it. Remember well. They want to stop this operation against the underworld and the drug business. Why does it need to be stopped? It becomes a threat to their existence. That is what they are doing. They have started creating unrest to a certain extent.
National unity and defeating racism
Next, what mothers and fathers expect for children, a country with education and law, a country free of drugs and crime, as well as the next main thing, is that our children need a country without future conflict.
Our country was in a continuous thirty-year war. In that war, especially in this Badulla and Mahiyanganaya area, the children of mothers and fathers went to war and died for this country. We remember. If we take about five, seven, eight years back from today, who built the bus stops in many of these places? There was a bus stop in the name of a fallen war hero. Wasn’t there? Photos were put up. When you go to the cemetery and look, whose was the biggest grave? The children of our mothers and fathers who went to war in the north and died. So if we are rebuilding a country, what for? We need to build a country where the citizens, youth and young women of this country do not stab each other. We need to build a country where Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, Burgher and Malay all of us live together in brotherhood. People died in the north too, people died in the south too. What does it mean to truly love our children? Do we need a country where we stab each other again? Do we need a country where we look at each other with hatred and anger again? No. What do we need? A country with national unity.
Without Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim division, we all need a country where our children live together in brotherhood. But what happens? It is difficult to build that. There are old forces. What is their only protection? They cannot talk about democracy. The people know their democratic history. They cannot talk about economic growth. The people know the history of destroying gas, diesel and electricity. They cannot talk about fraud and corruption. The people know the history of plundering SriLankan Airlines and the Central Bank. They cannot talk about education in our country. The people of the country know the destruction caused to it. What do they come and talk about? “The nation must be saved, the nation is in danger.” That is all. Remember, this Lankan nation must not fall into danger, and governing this country and taking it to the future is the responsibility of the National People’s Power, our responsibility. We will fulfil it.
But what happens? There is a group that cannot tolerate that new national unity. They want to stir up some kind of racism again. Create a conflict. There are old political movements in the north too. What do they do too? They have no other topic in the north. For the first time in the history of Sri Lanka, in the north, in the last election, the people of Jaffna district made the National People’s Power win. Won Vanni. Won Trincomalee, the east. It is like this. What does that mean? The people of the north, now the Jaffna district means Kilinochchi and the other electorates, we won. The Vanni district means Mullaitivu, Mannar, Vavuniya, we won those. What is the National People’s Power?
Without division in the north or east, the people living there have now placed their trust in the National People’s Power. For the first time in Lanka, the north, east, south, this hill country, Nuwara Eliya, we won. We won Badulla. All these people believed in this party, this movement. For what? They expected a country that is safe for everyone, a country where everyone can live with dignity along with their own cultural identities. We are building that. While building it, the old racist elements rise up. This is the danger. This is the unrest. The old racist elements rise up. Remember, the people of this country believe that no such element will be allowed to rise even an inch again to political power in this country. We will not allow it either. Will we allow racism to raise its head again? Will we allow religious extremism to rise again in our country? We must stop the old politics. The politics that created wars in our country. The politics that killed thousands of youth in our country. We are changing that. When changing it, the old racist elements have started to rise up.
Eradicating corruption and strengthening people’s power
So, if we take it from a few sides like that, when education is being built, the old elements become agitated. When going against drugs and narcotics, the old elements become agitated. When building national unity, racist elements become agitated. That is what has been happening. When law is established, the elements protected by the law become agitated. This is the situation today. But remember, there are one or two media channels for those unrests, there are those same old elements, but the ordinary people of this country are not there. The ordinary people of this country are with the National People’s Power. Today, tens of thousands of women gathering in this city of Badulla are giving the message that “this government is the future of our country, this government is the security of our country’s children.”
Therefore, we cannot just govern. In the past, people could have taken the government and governed. Now we cannot. What must we do now? Now, while governing, we must also defeat the conspiracies of those opposing elements. We must defeat those conspiracies. The people of this country have built a people-friendly government. It is working on the people’s agenda. It is working for the people’s needs. Now what is happening? Conspiracies are being attempted against it. Remember, every other government could fall victim to those conspiracies. Could be prey to conspiracies. But the National People’s Power government is not a government that can be made a victim of any such conspiracy.
Also, a main reason for destroying the future of our children was this fraud, corruption and waste. When we look from the inside now, more than what we see from outside, one can see how much the people’s wealth has been wasted, how much destroyed, how much stolen. Actually, if investigations are done properly, no one will remain. This is the actual situation. We are acting against fraud and corruption. Arresting. Conducting investigations. Filing cases. Imposing punishment through cases in the courts. We are doing this work properly. Do we need to do it? We are doing this. Until when? We will do it for the remaining three years. And also after the next election. This is not something that will be over in our two years. Some have connections with other countries. Some have fled and are abroad. We must bring them. Some things, the details of bank accounts in those countries, must be brought. Some people must come from abroad and give evidence. There is a lot of work. Therefore, not only eradicating fraud and corruption in this country, we will bring every person who stole the wealth of the great people of this country before the law and impose punishment. We will do that.
Then they become agitated. Remember, they must become more agitated. Why? What did they think? They always thought this swing would go that way and then come back this way. They kept swinging this swing to both sides. When it went to that side, a group got on. When it came to this side, the same crowd who were there got on again and came to this side. That is how they came. A completely new group did not come. The leader of Badulla here went that way when it went that way, and this way when it came this way. He is not in Badulla now, is he? Alright. That is how it was. They hung on to both sides of the swing. This is how it was. They shared and lived nicely, this group. But what is happening today? Something unexpected has happened to them. Their cradle has started to swing, to shake. They never thought such a situation would ever come. They never thought there would be an administration that would chase after their fraud and corruption. Now it has been built. Then they become agitated. Create conspiracies. This is the situation in society today.
Therefore, I think we need to do politics. We will run the government, as our brother Samantha said, we will build the economy. We are doing a large part of the work in the health sector, roads, bridges, housing. We will talk about that another day. But while running the government, we need to do politics. Our political work is that we cannot let these conspiratorial evil forces raise their heads again in the villages of our country. Will we allow it? We must build our branch strongly in the villages. We must work in the villages. We must protect the village. When building roads in development work, we must check whether the road is built properly. In this way, we must transform our political movement into a strong citizens’ movement.
Today, while running the government across the country, we come like this twice or three times a month. We come and what do we do? Talk about what has happened. Talk about the responsibility we have. At the end of this month, I think there is a conference of our intellectuals’ organisation. On the seventh of November, we have a conference bringing together trade unions. After that, we will bring together our youth movements. Bring them together and strengthen the political front. Because we do not have just governance. We have not only the resistance to the government, there is a political struggle here. There is an attempt by the old destructive political group to seize power in various conspiratorial ways. There is no room. But there is an attempt. We have transformed the National People’s Power into a strong political movement spread out strongly at the village level to counter that. This is our power. On one hand, there is the power of the government. With that we run the government. Let us strengthen political power from the villages.
Victory in the future through women’s participation
For that, especially, those who always gave us strength and courage were our women, our sisters. I think there was a time when there was doubt about whether our government would win the last 2024 presidential election or not. There was a time when there was doubt, saying “Even though they say that, we don’t know if the people will vote. Even though they say that, we don’t know if they can win or not.” But we started from Matara, we women gathering together in one fist. Thousands of women came. Everyone said, “If the women have come, then we have definitely won.” This is not a lie. This is the political signal in our country. Whatever direction the sisters are in, that is the direction that wins.
Therefore, today, this strong women’s movement, strong women’s voice, strong women’s organisation network, strong women, our Prime Minister, our Women’s Minister, our sister Ambika, the sisters representing our Executive Council, as well as the strong team in these villages and provinces are with us. So I think this power is not something that can be shaken again as long as these sisters are with us.
Therefore, let us all go and gather in the villages and build a strong movement. I conclude by inviting all of us to intervene for that. I wish victory for all of you!
