Weekend Box #125: Full Marx for Sri Lanka, Freedom at Last & more

Editor's note

Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s round-up of interesting or obscure political, business, and cultural news from around the world.

At the end of every busy week in Westminster, ministerial private offices ask their departments to submit papers to the ‘weekend box’ for Ministers and Secretaries of State to catch up with over the weekend. Similarly, we would like to send you into the weekend with a few stories to catch up with at your leisure.

So, let’s delve inside The Weekend Box.

Full Marx for Sri Lanka

Last weekend, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a neo-Marxist, upset the odds to win the Sri?Lankan presidency. His victory is Sri Lanka’s biggest political upset since gaining independence in 1948. Following the first presidential election runoff in Sri Lanka’s history, Dissanayake’s triumph was confirmed on Sunday following the counting of second-choice votes.

The results represent a seismic shift in Sri Lankan politics; Dissanayake received just 3% of the votes in the last presidential election in 2019. For many, the JVP had been considered an unelectable and?radical group ?due to its historic involvement in violent insurrections and targeted assassinations in the 1970s and 1980s.

However, this week, the demand for?fundamental change ?among the Sri Lankan people superseded these concerns. Just two years ago, the country defaulted on its debts; crippled by Covid-19, excessive borrowing and a series of policy blunders. Inflation soared, fuel and food supplies ran out and the nation descended into widespread protests. The president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country, leaving his successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to negotiate an IMF bail-out.

Riding this wave of discontent, Dissanayake’s success represents an emphatic rejection of the traditional political elite. While the three leading candidates were related to former presidents, Dissanayake’s modest background sat in stark contrast. He pitched himself as a technocratic “nonpolitician,” focused on ending the?corruption ?and patronage networks that supported this elite, playing to an emerging middle class seeking prosperity beyond nepotism. Upon victory, he?promised ?“a fresh start”.

From a geopolitical standpoint, New Delhi and Washington will be monitoring developments closely given the JVP’s historical ties to Beijing. However, facing such profound economic challenges, a careful geopolitical balance to enable maintained focus on domestic policy seems likely in the short-term.

Image Credit: Chathura Anuradha Subasinghe. License.

Don’t Bank on?EU Integration

In our last edition of the Weekend Box, we referenced Mario?Draghi’s report into the future competitiveness of the European Union. Draghi described the lack of economic growth as an ‘existential challenge’ and the choice between life or a slow, agonising decline.

That warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears. This week was a reminder of the challenges of co-ordinating European member states behind a master growth strategy and deeper economic integration.

One of Draghi’s keenest observations was Europe’s financial services system is underpowered. Current EU rules make it difficult and expensive for banks to operate cross border. As a result, European banks are much smaller than their American counterparts; Europe has no banking champion to go toe-to-toe with JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs.

National politics remains the biggest barrier. The German government’s reaction to Italian headquartered UniCredit Group moving towards a potential takeover of German Commerzbank is case in point. Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it an “unfriendly move” and may try to block a tie-up. Scholz seems alarmed at the prospect of a foreign takeover of Germany’s second largest bank and the creation of a powerful competitor to its only national banking champion, Deutsche Bank.

As former ECB Chief Economist Peter Praet put it: “following on the heels of the Draghi report, this is a communications disaster.” Other European officials, think tank wonks and politicians vented frustration at Scholz’s reaction.

Europe’s Single Market has been around for 30 years but it remains incomplete, especially in banking and capital markets. If European politicians are serious about greater integration and believe it to be an answer to the growth challenge Draghi has highlighted, they need to put domestic politics to one side.?

Image Credit: European Parliament. License.

Privacy in Peril

Zhu Hengpeng, a prominent Chinese economist and deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), has disappeared from public view after reportedly criticising President Xi Jinping and China's economic policies in a private WeChat group.

Zhu's last public appearance was in April 2024, and he has since been detained and removed from his academic positions. His WeChat comments allegedly touched on sensitive topics, including China’s sluggish economy and?Xi’s leadership, with reports suggesting he also referenced Xi's mortality . Zhu’s removal feels like a new threshold of peril facing Chinese intellectuals and public figures who express dissenting views, even in private forums.

This incident is part of a broader crackdown on dissent within China, particularly targeting those in influential positions who critique the government's handling of the economy.?Zhu’s case mirrors previous high-profile disappearances, such as Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma's after his criticism of China's regulatory system in 2020.

In July this year,?Hu Xijin, the former editor of Global Times and a typically outspoken supporter of the Communist Party, unexpectedly went silent on social media after offering a contentious critique of the Chinese government’s economic policies. Other officials and elites have faced similar fates amid an intensified censorship campaign by the Xi administration, which seeks to stifle criticism of its economic policies as the nation grapples with slow growth and increasing public dissatisfaction.

Image Credit: UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré. License .

Freedom at Last!

In April, Weekend Box reported from an anniversary event in London marking two years since the wrongful imprisonment of Vladimir Kara-Murza by the Putin regime in Russia. His “crime” was speaking out against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. At the event we heard a string of speakers, most impressively Vladimir’s wife?Evgenia and his mother Elena, denounce Putin’s act of revenge that sentenced Vladimir to 25 years for treason and banished him to solitary confinement in a Siberian prison. It was a profoundly moving occasion where all present vowed to keep his name alive and get him out, while worrying to ourselves that he might well die in his cell.

On Monday, we found ourselves back in the same room with the same people. This time, however, we were joined by Vladimir himself.

In August, he and 15 others were released from Russia in the biggest prisoner swap between western countries and Russia since the Cold War. Monday’s event was equally moving, this time a chance to celebrate and to acknowledge the efforts of all those?marshalled by Sir Bill Browder and team who had campaigned on Vladimir’s behalf or played some part in his release.

Vladimir and Evgenia both vividly recalled the many political prisoners still detained in Russia and asked us to keep those Russians who reject?Putin, at such cost firmly in mind.? Vladimir reminded us how many showed up for Alexei Navalny’s funeral, knowing that they would be monitored by the regime, or queued for hours in February to sign the petition for the sole anti-war candidate standing in the presidential election (blocked through procedural sleight of hand as covered previously in Weekend Box). Vladimir noted as a historian that as with the Romanovs and the Soviet regime, when the end comes for Putin it will be sudden. His challenge: be ready.

Image Credit: Micha? Siergiejevicz. License.?

On the Turn-er

20 years ago, the Turner Prize event was the hottest ticket in the art world. The ceremony, held at the Tate Britain and featuring celebrities like Madonna, was broadcast on national television. The?shortlist spawned dozens of column inches of praise, speculation, and outrage.

This year, critics have labelled it the ‘rotting corpse’ ?of the art world, calling it irrelevant, unimaginative, narrow-minded, and plain dull. Where did it go so wrong?

The prize’s identity has been in decline since 2019, when the nominees?agreed to share the prize in order to take a stand against isolation and exclusion with a “symbolic gesture of cohesion”. Despite their act being, on paper, the kind of controversial statement the Prize’s renown was built around, public reaction was muted.?In 2020, the prize didn’t take place due to?Covid-19?and it has struggled to recapture audiences ever since.

Predictably, as is the case in so much of the arts sector, finding adequate financial support is a problem. The Times reported ?that ‘the two ￡15,000 sponsorship deals were from two business partners — one a former Tate chairman, the other a trustee of its foundation’.

The Turner Prize was once both the country’s most scandalous and most coveted award – precisely because of its divisiveness. Its shortlists were populated with works like Tracey Emin’s ‘My bed’ and Damien Hirst’s ‘Mother and Child Divided’ (the sculpture featuring cows in formaldehyde), designed to inspire conflict, to shock and excite. Given that this year’s shortlist has barely raised an eyebrow, the judges would do well to play things a little less safe.??

Image Credit: Tate Britain. License .

And that's it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at [email protected]

For now, that’s The Weekend Box officially closed.?

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