Ampitiye Sumanarathana Thero, a prominent Eastern Province Buddhist monk, has publicly broken with what he called the “Rajapaksa Nikaya” and pledged his “maximum support” to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake following a meeting in Batticaloa on Wednesday.
In a video statement issued after the meeting, the Thero said he had earlier signalled he would “take a step forward” if attempts to engage with the President during his Eastern Province visit failed. Senior police officers and Presidential Security Division officials subsequently facilitated the meeting.
The monk said he raised “several issues and concerns” relating to the Eastern Province during the discussion, and that the President assured him steps would be taken to address them. He thanked Dissanayake for granting the audience and said he was ready to support the government’s efforts to “move the country in a positive direction” for as long as the President remained in office.
The “Rajapaksa Nikaya” framing is a direct repudiation of the patronage network that linked sections of the Buddhist clergy to the former ruling family. The shift is notable from an Eastern Province monk whose constituency falls outside the traditional Sinhala Buddhist nationalist heartland.
The statement came on the same day the President delivered his rule-of-law address in Batticaloa and opened a new public library in the district.
