Critical Review: AKD's 2026 Budget & Policy Shifts ⚠️

• Debt Stance: President AKD is critiqued as a "debt-denier," focusing on interest payments despite a low debt haircut (under 10%) and compressed repayment terms, with indications of seeking further 'dollar debt'. • Social Contract Suspended (Land/Rural): The Budget prioritizes dismantling hurdles for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), with a key commitment to evaluate and make state land available to investors. • Critics warn this policy overturns the traditional policy prioritizing the peasantry, risking landlessness, rural exodus to cities, and a shift from food crops to export crops for foreign agribusiness. • Ethnic Contract Suspended (Devolution): The President flatly dismissed setting a timeframe for long-overdue Provincial Council (PC) elections, stating a lack of existing legislation. • This is viewed as abandoning the 'Ethnic Contract' and commitment to devolution (13th Amendment), leaving provinces without elected representation. • Global Context: The focus of emergent US Democratic Socialism (Zohran Mamdani, AOC) on the 'Cost-of-Living Crisis' and 'Affordability' is highlighted as a relevant blueprint for Sri Lanka's opposition parties.