Gampaha District MP Dr. Kavinda Jayawardena will speak at an international roundtable in Brussels on Tuesday on protecting political parties from foreign interference, and says Sri Lanka’s newly enacted 22nd Amendment could become a topic at the conference, the Daily Mirror reported.

The event is titled “Political Parties under Pressure – How to Strengthen the Resilience of Parties against Malign Influence from Third Actors” and is scheduled for 29 September 2026 in Brussels, Belgium.

Who is convening it

The roundtable is organised by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), the German political foundation aligned with the Christian Democratic Union, together with the European Network of Political Foundations (ENoP).

It brings together representatives of European political foundations, experts from EU institutions and think tanks, and participants from partner regions worldwide.

What the MP will say

Jayawardena will deliver an input statement on the opening panel, which examines the pressures political parties inside and outside Europe face from malign influence. The Daily Mirror lists these as foreign information manipulation and interference, covert financing, cyber operations and disinformation campaigns.

He is expected to present a Sri Lankan perspective on those threats and on strengthening democratic institutions.

The 22A connection

Jayawardena’s claim that the 22nd Amendment “could become a topic” is his own expectation rather than a scheduled agenda item — the roundtable’s published framing is about foreign interference, not Sri Lankan constitutional reform.

Parliament passed the 22nd Amendment 158 votes to 63 on 25 September, over opposition objections centred on judicial retirement ages and the composition of the courts. A European Parliament delegation discussed GSP+ and constitutional reform in Colombo earlier in the month.

Newswire, which also reported the appearance, identifies Jayawardena as a Samagi Jana Balawegaya MP; the Daily Mirror’s account gives only his district.

Update, 1 October: what he actually said

Jayawardena delivered his remarks on the opening panel on 29 September as scheduled. His argument had three parts, as reported by Newswire:

He asked European partners to help build fact-checking capacity and digital literacy in local languages, and to treat countries such as Sri Lanka as genuine democratic partners rather than aid recipients. He closed by arguing that malign influence does not respect borders, so building resilient democracies in Europe requires helping build them in the Indian Ocean as well. He also described Sri Lanka’s ethnic and religious diversity as a strength to be protected from those seeking to divide communities.

The Daily Mirror carried its own account of the remarks on 1 October, matching Newswire’s on all three points and quoting him directly on the first:

“Building strong party institutions rather than relying on individual leaders is a dire need.”

Its version adds that Jayawardena framed the Sri Lankan case around the country’s position at the heart of the Indian Ocean and the strategic importance that gives it, and that he asked European partners to support internal party democracy, training and youth leadership specifically. He closed, per the Daily Mirror: “Malign influence does not respect borders. If we want resilient democracies in Europe, we must also help build them in the Indian Ocean.”

The 22A expectation was not borne out. Jayawardena had told the Daily Mirror beforehand that the 22nd Amendment could become a topic at the roundtable. No mention of it appears in the account of his remarks. That is consistent with the roundtable’s published framing, which was about foreign interference rather than Sri Lankan constitutional reform.

One caveat on all of the above: the roundtable was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, so what is on the record is Jayawardena’s own account of his own contribution, distributed afterwards. Nothing said by other participants has been reported, and no outcome document has been published.

Sources