The Phantom Hands Behind the Market: Is Economic Sabotage the New Opposition to Sri Lanka’s NPP Government?
In the old days of Sri Lankan politics, governments were destabilised with street riots, defections, midnight crossovers, and occasionally the sound of armoured vehicles rolling through Colombo. But the new battlefield is quieter. There are no tanks outside Temple Trees. No mobs storming ministries. No smoke rising from burning tyres in Borella.
Instead, the war may arrive through balance sheets.
A delayed shipment here.
A sudden dollar shortage there.
An unexplained liquidity squeeze.
A whisper in the banking sector.
A carefully timed stock market withdrawal.
And before long, the public begins asking the familiar Sri Lankan question: “Where has all the money gone?”
That is the fear now quietly circulating among supporters of the ruling National People’s Power government — that the political forces defeated at the ballot box may attempt to return through economic destabilisation rather than democratic competition.
At the centre of these suspicions stands the once untouchable political dynasty of the Rajapaksa family.
For nearly two decades, the Rajapaksas did not merely govern Sri Lanka; critics argue they embedded themselves deep within the architecture of the economy itself. Construction, ports, supermarkets, banking relationships, hotel chains, logistics networks, healthcare investments, insurance firms, stock market holdings, cement distributors, import businesses — the ecosystem of influence became vast, layered, and difficult to trace.
In Colombo’s financial circles, there has long been speculation that politically connected proxy investors, nominee shareholders, and friendly conglomerates helped create a shadow economy of influence operating behind the formal corporate structure.
Whether exaggerated or not, the political anxiety is real.
The NPP leadership now governs a country still traumatised by bankruptcy. Citizens remember queues for fuel, shortages of medicine, inflation that swallowed salaries whole, and the collapse of confidence in the rupee. Sri Lanka’s economic nervous system remains fragile. It would not take much to trigger panic again.
And panic, in economics, is contagious.
That is why some within the NPP camp increasingly believe the greatest threat to the government is no longer parliamentary opposition — but economic warfare.
Not warfare with bombs.
But with capital.
The New Battlefield: Liquidity
Modern governments do not collapse only because people dislike them. They collapse when economies stop functioning.
A shortage of dollars rapidly becomes a shortage of fuel.
A shortage of fuel becomes a transport crisis.
The transport crisis becomes food inflation.
Food inflation becomes street anger.
Street anger becomes political instability.
Sri Lanka has already lived through this chain reaction once.
The concern among NPP loyalists is that powerful business networks aligned with the former ruling establishment may possess the financial leverage necessary to engineer precisely such instability.
If large investors quietly withdraw capital from listed companies, pressure banks through coordinated movements, freeze imports, slow supply chains, or manipulate market sentiment, the impact could spread quickly across an already fragile economy.
The average citizen does not study bond yields or liquidity ratios.
They only notice when milk powder disappears.
Or when the dollar rises overnight.
Or when interest rates suddenly suffocate businesses.
The opposition does not necessarily need to win elections if public frustration can be manufactured economically.
And this is where the political paranoia of post-bankruptcy Sri Lanka becomes deeply combustible.
The Ghost of 2022 Still Haunts Colombo
One question continues to linger over Sri Lanka’s collapse like an unanswered riddle:
How did a country with nearly seven billion dollars in reserves in 2019 descend into sovereign bankruptcy within such a short period?
The answer, economists argue, includes multiple factors: tax cuts, reckless borrowing, the Easter Sunday attacks, COVID-19, tourism collapse, fertiliser policy failures, and external debt pressures.
But politically, many Sri Lankans still believe there is a darker story buried beneath the spreadsheets.
Who benefited?
Where did the money move?
Who transferred assets abroad before the collapse?
Which politically connected networks insulated themselves while ordinary citizens queued for kerosene?
Those questions have never fully disappeared.
The NPP’s rise to power was built partly on public exhaustion with corruption, oligarchy, and dynastic politics. But winning office is one thing. Dismantling entrenched economic power structures is another altogether.
Because political dynasties rarely disappear completely.
They retreat.
They regroup.
And sometimes, they wait for markets to do what elections could not.
Economic Terrorism or Political Imagination?
The phrase “economic terrorism” is emotionally powerful and politically explosive. Critics would argue such language risks turning legitimate market activity into conspiracy theory.
After all, investors withdraw money for many reasons. Businesses hedge risk. Markets fluctuate naturally. Currency volatility exists in every developing economy.
Yet Sri Lanka is not a normal economy emerging from normal politics.
This is a country where politics and business have often operated as twins rather than cousins.
The overlap between political power and commercial influence has historically been immense. Governments changed, but certain networks remained economically untouchable.
That is precisely why some NPP supporters are demanding an aggressive state response.
They argue the government should establish a special presidential commission to investigate alleged illicit wealth accumulation, politically connected corporate ownership structures, and suspicious financial flows linked to former political elites.
Such a commission, they say, should possess forensic accounting powers capable of tracing beneficial ownership hidden behind shell companies, proxies, offshore accounts, and nominee shareholders.
The objective would not simply be prosecution.
It would be economic transparency.
Because in modern oligarchic systems, power often hides behind corporate paperwork rather than political office.
The Fear Inside the Banking Sector
Perhaps the greatest concern is not supermarkets or import chains — but finance itself.
Sri Lanka’s banking system remains extraordinarily sensitive to confidence shocks. Rumours alone can trigger currency pressure or investor anxiety.
If influential financial actors aligned with former political power centres coordinate informally to restrict lending, move capital, manipulate market sentiment, or pressure currency expectations, the consequences could ripple rapidly.
Whether such coordination actually exists is another matter entirely.
But politics is often driven not merely by evidence — but by fear of possibility.
And the NPP government appears increasingly aware that economic security may become as important as national security.
Because in the twenty-first century, governments are rarely overthrown by coups alone.
Sometimes they are strangled slowly by markets.
Nationalising Confidence
For the NPP, the deeper challenge may not simply be exposing corruption or investigating past governments. It may be rebuilding public trust in the economic system itself.
Many Sri Lankans feel the economy has long operated for a tiny circle of politically connected elites rather than the population at large.
That perception — fair or unfair — fuels support for structural reforms, stronger financial regulation, anti-monopoly investigations, and tighter scrutiny of politically exposed persons.
The NPP now faces a historic dilemma:
Can it democratise the economy before entrenched economic interests reorganise against it?
Or will Sri Lanka once again become trapped in the cycle where wealth manipulates politics faster than politics can reform wealth?
For now, Colombo watches nervously.
The stock market flickers.
The rupee trembles at every rumour.
Business elites smile politely at diplomatic receptions.
And somewhere in the shadows of Sri Lanka’s fragile recovery, the old networks are still believed to be waiting.