Diana Gamage

Background

Diana Gamage is a Politician in Sri Lanka. She was born on 18 December 1965. She is married to Dr Senaka Haripriya de Silva, a retired Army Captain. As of June 2024, he was the Chairman of Ryder Holdings. Ryder Holdings is active in the fields of telecommunication, retail fashion, tourism, media, aquaculture, food and beverage, entertainment, e-commerce and financial services, and their business portfolio includes a pub named ‘Shamrock’.

Image 1: Diana Gamage. Source: Sri Lanka Mirror

Political Career

Gamage was the General Secretary of the political party named ‘Our National Front (ONF)’ (Ape Jathika Peramuna) until 2nd March 2020 chaired by her husband Senaka De Silva. However, ‘Our National Front’ party was registered at Election Commission by Mangala Samaraweera on 22 June 2009 naming himself as the President of the party and Ruwan Ferdinandez as its Secretary. Details on acquisition of the party by Gamage and her husband are not available in the public domain. In February 2020, ONF’s name changed into Samagi Jana Balawegaya before contesting for the Parliamentary election 2020. With this transition, Senaka De Silva and Diana Gamage became the Vice Chairman and the Deputy Secretary of Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).

Gamage entered Politics in 2020 as she was nominated to the Parliament as a national list Member of Parliament (MP) from the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. The “National List” is the quota of members of parliament each political party gets based on the percentage of votes they get at national level. Thus, these members are not elected from the peoples’ votes but are nominated by the political party. Diana Gamage was quoted by media acknowledging that she was nominated as a national list MP in return for handing over the ONF to be transformed to SJB.

On 22 October 2020, she voted for the 20th Amendment of the Constitution of Sri Lanka against SJB stance in the Parliament and was expelled from the party as a consequence. MP Gamage filed a petition in the Supreme Court against expulsion from SJB on 4th November 2021 and the petition was withdrawn on 17 July 2024.

After voting for the 20th Amendment, she crossed over to the government in 2021, and was appointed the State Minister of Transport and Tourism.

The controversy of citizenship and the loss of her parliament seat

The legitimacy of Diana Gamage’s seat at the Parliament was first challenged by a written complaint to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the division of Sri Lanka Police that investigate national level crimes, on 2nd November 2020 by an individual named Oshala Herath. The complaint was made based on the grounds that she is not a Sri Lankan citizen. The complaint alleged that Gamage had forged documents and possessed two passports while being a British citizen. Oshala Herath, identified as an activist, was a candidate for the Parliamentary election representing the United National Party in Colombo District in 2020. The CID submitted the B report to the Colombo Magistrate’s Court (case number B48037/01/2021), which stated that Gamage had forged her birth certificates and hidden the fact of her being a British Citizen to obtain her diplomatic passport. 'B' reports as are documents produced by the police ‘to produce a suspect to the magistrate court, to report the progress of the investigation regarding an offense that can get arrested without a warrant’. The court dismissed the request for a warrant stating that the CID was empowered to take action on the complaint.

Oshala Herath submitted a writ application to the court of appeal on 16th November 2022 declaring that Gamege is disqualified to be a Member of Parliament due to British Citizenship. The Court of Appeal initially decided in favour of MP Gamage as per the decision given on 31st October 2023 (CA/WRT/434/2022). It was appealed at the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in November 2023 and its verdict was delivered on 08th May 2024 before a three-judge-bench comprising Justices Gamini Amarasekara, Kumuduni Wickremasinghe and Janak de Silva. Justice Janak De Silva reading the statement concluded that MP Gamage is ineligible to be a Member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka (S.C. Appeal No. 11/2024) in terms of Article 140 of the Constitution (Image 2). The case was argued on 13th February 2024 and decided on 8th May 2024 at Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Based on the court decision, Secretary General of the Parliament issued a letter to the Chairman of the Election Commission on 9th May 2024 informing of the vacant parliamentary seat. The vacant parliamentary seat was offered to Mujibur Rahman representing SJB.

Image 2: Media reporting the Supreme Court decision on Parliamentary seat of Diana Gamage. Source: Daily Mirror

Political/Government positions held

• State Minister of Tourism – 8 September 2022 to 8 May 2024
• State Minister of Transport – 18 April 2022 to 8 May 2024
• Member of Parliament – 20 August 2020 to 8 May 2024
• Deputy Secretary – Samagi Jana Balawegaya – 12 February 2020 to June 2023

Tobacco Related Activities

Stating nicotine and alcohol was a colonial strategy against Sri Lankans

In an interview for the Daily Mirror on 21st September 2022 by the Journalist Kamanthi Wickramasinghe, Diana Gamage, in an attempt to justify legalisation of Cannabis in Sri Lanka, mentioned that ‘Alcohol and Nicotine’ were introduced to Sri Lanka by the British in order to ‘weaken’ our people who had being using cannabis (Image 3).

Image 3: Media reporting the interview of Diana Gamage justifying the legalization of cannabis. Source: Daily Mirror

 

Alcohol Related Activities

Diana Gamage’s husband owning a pub

The Ryder Holdings, a company chaired by her husband Senaka De Silva, owns a club named Shamrock which sells alcohol (Image 4 and 5).

Image 4: Excerpt from the Ryder holdings website. Source: Ryder Holdings

Image 5: A bars and pubs reviewing website describing the types of alcohol available at the Shamrock. Source: TimeOut

Proposal to reduce alcohol prices

On 22nd August 2023, in her parliament speech, Diana Gamage proposed to reduce alcohol prices claiming that it will increase tax revenue, reduce illicit alcohol consumption and increase the affordability of licensed alcohol (Image 6).This is despite clear evidence that increasing alcohol taxation leads to an increase in government revenue.

Image 6: Media reporting the MP Gamage’s statement to reduce prices of alcohol. Source: Daily Mirror

Proposal to extend opening hours of alcohol sales outlets

In her parliament speech on 23rd May 2023, she suggested to extend operating hours of alcohol sale points claiming that it will increase excise tax revenue by increasing alcohol sales (Image 7). The government amended the Excise Ordinance to extend the hours up to 10.00pm via extraordinary gazette number 2361/44 effective from December 09, 2023.

Image 7: Media reporting Gamage’s request to extend the bar opening hours. Source: Daily Mirror

Cannabis Related Activities

Proposal to legalise cannabis cultivation

In April 2021, she proposed to legalise cannabis cultivation and export cannabis for medicinal uses. This proposal was largely criticised by the religious leaders, academics, and professional organisations including the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) and the Sri Lanka College of Psychiatrists. She highlighted cannabis cultivation as a method to earn foreign exchange several times disregarding the opposition. In a statement made on 16th November 2021 during the budget debate of the parliament, Diana Gamage proposed to legalise cannabis cultivation and export cannabis as an alternative to obtaining support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to resolve the foreign debt crisis in Sri Lanka.

In October 2022, a Parliamentary Committee was established by the President Ranil Wickremasinghe to study the legalization of cannabis as an export product. MP Sisira Jayakody, the State Minister of Indigenous Medicine, presented a Cabinet paper in October 2022 on cultivation of cannabis locally for medicinal uses. In July 2023, Gamage told that there are ongoing discussions to run a pilot project of cannabis cultivation as a Board of Investment (BOI) project. Despite confirmation by the cabinet spokesman that no cabinet decision was taken to legalise Cannabis, Diana Gamage reaffirmed that a cabinet paper was presented in November 2023 to which Cabinet approval was given. As a response, she referred to the Cabinet Paper No: 23/2321/631/031, a joint memorandum dated 29 November 2023 presented by the President Ranil Wickremasinghe and Minister of Investment Promotion and the Minister of Health on ‘Exporting the Thriloka Vijaya Pathra (Cannabis) based products’.

Promoting cannabis products in mass media

Since 2021, she has made many media appearances on national media where she regularly reiterates her stance and proposal of legalising cannabis cultivation. While doing so, she promotes cannabis and its products highlighting their medicinal qualities and potential economic benefits as an export product. Some of those appearances are mentioned in Table 01.

Table 1: Summary of television programmes in which Diana Gamage promoted cannabis cultivation

Date	TV Channel	Programme	Available at
29 November 2021	Hiru	Salakuna	https://web.archive.org/web/20240518182922/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciemoG7HIZg
03 October 2022	Hiru	Salakuna	https://web.archive.org/web/20240518181413/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X7we3Ynv-A
26 December 2022	Derana	360	https://web.archive.org/web/20240518183539/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifj9bWRNv_U
17 February 2023	Rupavahini	Face to Face	https://web.archive.org/web/20240518184353/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh4yzcA8y58
29 May 2023	Derana	360	https://web.archive.org/web/20240518181413/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X7we3Ynv-A
31 October 2023	Rupavahini	The big question	https://web.archive.org/web/20240518184436/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dy0ZsTOP08
15 February 2024	Ada Derana	Rebuild Sri Lanka	https://web.archive.org/web/20240518184217/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV7NYZbuwCE

TobaccoUnmasked Resources

• Mangala Samaraweera
• Ranil Wickremasinghe

The local language translations