The honeymoon is over, and the NPP should be worried

Editorials
By Editor_1
A general view of Sri Lanka's main business city, Colombo. The latest Mood of the Nation poll by Verité Research show government approval fell from 65% in February 2026 to 50% in July, the share of respondents who said the economy was improving fell from 64% to 42%, while disapproval rose to 31% indicating a substantial deterioration in public perceptions of the government’s performance -Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters/File

Sri Lanka’s political establishment has operated on the assumption that the National People’s Power (NPP) government, propelled into office by voters exhausted with the old order, would enjoy an unusually long period of public patience. The latest Mood of the Nation poll by Verité Research challenges that assumption. In five months, government approval fell from 65% in February 2026 to 50% in July. The share of respondents who said the economy was improving fell from 64% to 42%, while disapproval rose to 31%. These figures do not prove that the government has lost its electoral mandate, but they do indicate a substantial deterioration in public perceptions of its performance.

It would be a mistake to dismiss the findings as noise from a single poll. A separate Social Indicators Survey reported satisfaction levels of 76% for the president, 68% for the prime minister and 45% for MPs of the ruling party. The figures are broadly comparable, but they should not be treated as identical measures: the two surveys asked different questions and used separate research designs. Even so, the results point to an important distinction between continuing confidence in individual leaders and weaker confidence in the governing institution. That distinction deserves the government’s attention.

What should concern the NPP most is the direction and speed of the change. This is not simply a government drifting gradually from popularity to unpopularity. Public perceptions of economic performance, the area most central to the government’s credibility, have weakened sharply. In July, 56% of respondents described current economic conditions as poor, while 38% rated them good or excellent. Five months earlier, a majority had said that economic conditions were improving.

The NPP did not come to power on process or personality alone. It presented itself as a cleaner, more competent and more accountable alternative to the political order associated with the economic crisis of 2022. Its promise was not merely to govern differently, but to improve people’s material circumstances while rejecting corruption and self-dealing. The latest polling does not establish that this promise has failed. It does show, however, that public confidence in the government’s economic performance is weakening, and that the government cannot address this decline through messaging alone.

There is a temptation for government supporters to point to the continued popularity of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, 76% and 68% satisfaction respectively, as evidence that the broader project remains secure. That would be a dangerous comfort. The gap between satisfaction with individual leaders and approval of the government suggests that personal goodwill has not yet been fully converted into confidence in the government as a governing institution.

This gap may eventually narrow in either direction. Effective performance could lift institutional approval closer to the leaders’ ratings. Alternatively, continued dissatisfaction with government performance could erode the leaders’ personal popularity. Political leaders can remain more popular than the institutions they head, but that separation cannot be assumed to last indefinitely.

To be fair to the NPP, the numbers are not yet catastrophic. Government approval remains substantially higher than disapproval. The Economic Confidence Index has returned to negative territory, at −8, but it remains well above its mid-2024 low of −39. The public has also shown in previous polling that confidence can recover quickly when conditions are perceived to be improving. Sri Lankans are not necessarily implacably hostile to the government; they may still be willing to be persuaded by visible results.

But a willingness to be persuaded is not the same as unlimited patience. A government that has spent much of its early tenure highlighting the failures of its predecessors cannot rely indefinitely on that comparison. The NPP was elected on the premise that it represented something categorically different: cleaner, more competent and more accountable than what came before. That premise is now being tested by the lived economic experience of the people who voted for it.

A 22-percentage-point fall in the share of respondents who believe the economy is improving is not a rounding error. Nor is it proof of an irreversible political collapse. It is evidence that public confidence in the government’s economic performance is weakening, and that the government’s central political promise is under pressure.

The NPP still has time to respond, but it should not spend that time in denial. If approval continues to decline while disapproval rises, the gap between the two will narrow. A crossover is not inevitable, and one or two further polls cannot by themselves determine the government’s political future. But the possibility is now clearly on the table.

The Verité Research figures are not a prediction of electoral defeat. They are a warning that the public is watching, keeping score and becoming less willing to extend indefinite credit. The government should treat the poll not as an inconvenience to be managed, but as a signal to improve economic delivery, communicate honestly about setbacks and demonstrate that its claim to be different from its predecessors is more than a promise.

–ENCL

Editor_1
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