March 23, 2026 – March 29, 2026 | Vol.16, #13 | ISSN 3084-9330
Photo credits: Nikkei Asia
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Over the past week, Sinhala media focused on fuel scarcity and sharp price hikes linked to the ongoing war in the Middle East.
The coverage spanned print, television, and social media commentary. Social media narratives and conversations were monitored and analysed using specialised digital tracking tools.[1]
This week’s analysis is set out under three headings.
1. What were the key events that captured public attention?
March 17: During a televised media briefing, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that the government had introduced fuel conservation and supply measures, including the QR code system, expedited tenders, and diplomatic engagement with partner countries, to manage the anticipated fuel disruptions caused by the war in the Middle East.
March 21: The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation announced a second fuel price revision in March, increasing petrol, diesel, and kerosene prices by 25–35 percent.
March 23: The National Transport Commission announced a 12.19 percent increase in bus fares. The All-Ceylon Bakery Owners’ Association also announced an increase in the prices of bakery products, including bread.
March 25: The government continued to observe Wednesday as a public holiday as part of fuel-conservation measures, while exempting selected essential services such as health.
Compared to the previous few weeks, when coverage centred on the government’s management of fuel rationing through the introduction of the QR code system, last week’s discourse widened to the broader economic and daily-life effects of fuel scarcity and price hikes.
In this week’s issue of MPA, we examine how Sinhala media held different actors accountable for fuel scarcity and price hikes, and how the issue impacted the government.
2. Who was held accountable in the media discourse?
The Sinhala media discourse held three key sets of actors accountable for the fuel shortages and price hikes: the government, past governments, and other non-political actors, including private fuel companies, Electric Vehicle (EV) drivers, and hoarders. The discourse primarily focused on how these actors were seen as contributing to or intensifying fuel scarcity and price increases.
Table 1 sets out the actors held accountable and the basis for that accountability.
Table 1: Actors held accountable in the Sinhala media discourse
3. How is the government impacted?
The government is affected by how precautionary measures introduced to address fuel scarcity are interpreted in light of the memory of the 2022 economic crisis. While intended to prevent panic and ration supply, these very precautionary measures appear to have triggered panic by signalling a return to conditions associated with past shortages, and led to shortages as demand increased along with those fears.
The government appears to be contending with how the memory of the 2022 economic crisis shapes the interpretation of its current measures.
The first time a QR code was introduced to ration fuel in Sri Lanka was in July 2022 in the midst of an extremely traumatic period of shortages, power-cuts, currency depreciation and inflation – it was the worst economic crisis that Sri Lankans had faced in their life-times. The reintroduction of the QR-based fuel pass and Wednesday holidays, including the 25–35 percent fuel price increase, appear to function as psychological triggers for a population that has only recently emerged from that trauma, causing the population to react with deep-seated anxiety and extreme fear.
In that context, official assurances of a “40-day fuel buffer” seem to be met with a trust deficit, because similar rhetoric preceded the depletion of Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves in 2022. The administrative measures introduced to manage the situation, were being seen not as strategic responses but as a return to a familiar pattern of failure that the NPP had promised to move beyond.
The opposition seems to equate the present situation with the 2022 collapse, arguing that Wednesday holidays and fuel rationing mirror the systemic paralysis associated with the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration.
In contrast, the government maintained a nuanced defence, arguing that the current situation is fundamentally different from that of 2022: the earlier collapse was rooted in internal corruption and fiscal mismanagement, whereas the current instability is the result of external geopolitical shocks, specifically the war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which remain beyond domestic control.
[1] The MPA team monitored Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube using Junkipedia for the keywords oil, fuel, queues, war, dollar and Trump in Sinhala as well as QR, #FuelCrisis and #LKA from March 23 to March 29, 2026.
To view this week’s news summaries, please click here.
To view this week’s social media data, please click here.
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