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Is Sri Lanka’s government run by politicians in their late seventies? A short video that has resurfaced on social media says so. It uses photos of 11 government politicians and JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva, each labelled with an age between 70 and 78, and claims that all 12 are over 75. Here is how the video presented its claim.
Social Media Posts:
Under the theme “All of them are not just 65, they are over 75,” a short video showed photos of 12 National People’s Power (NPP) politicians, each with an age in front, such as “I am 78.”
The video showed only ages and no names, so we identified the photos and added the names below. The order follows the photo arrangement in the video (top to bottom, left to right).
National List MP Sugath Wasantha de Silva (78), Deputy Speaker Dr. Rizvie Salih (77), National List MP Abubakar Athambawa (77), Deputy Minister Upali Samarasinghe (76), JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva (77), Minister Anura Karunathilaka (76), Minister Hiniduma Sunil Senevi (76), Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage (76), Deputy Minister T. B. Sarath (75), MP Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi (75), Minister K. D. Lal Kantha (73), Deputy Minister and attorney Sunil Watagala (70)
Posts with photos from the same video had also been circulating for several months, and they went viral on TikTok too.
Facebook post | Facebook photo | FB
We set out to check whether these 12 politicians were really over 75.
Fact-Check:
Except for Tilvin Silva, all the politicians named in the video are Members of Parliament, so their biographical details are published on the Parliament of Sri Lanka’s official website. We used these details to check the ages in the social media post.
Parliament’s official website is a reliable source for verifying ages
Parliament, Sri Lanka’s highest legislative body, publishes an official profile page for each MP under their own name. The page gives the MP’s name, position, district or national list, party, and date of birth. (Rizvie Salih’s page has no date of birth.) All 10 pages we checked on October 13, 2026, listed a date of birth, and the NPP spokesperson we asked also said the information was correct. The official profile pages with dates of birth were therefore our main source.
Ten politicians are far younger than the ages shown in the video
National List MP Sugath Wasantha de Silva: He is the first visually impaired MP in the history of Sri Lanka’s Parliament. The video gave his age as 78, but the Parliament’s official website says he was born on July 26, 1967. He is therefore 59 years old.
National List MP Abubakar Athambawa: The video gave his age as 77, but he was born on January 28, 1968. He is therefore 58 years old.
Deputy Minister Upali Samarasinghe: The video showed his age as 76, but the Parliament’s website says he was born on December 24, 1967. He is therefore 58 years old.
Minister Anura Karunathilaka: The video gave his age as 76, but he was born on December 31, 1967. He is therefore 58 years old.
Minister Hiniduma Sunil Senevi: The video gave his age as 76, but the Parliament’s website says he was born on July 21, 1972. He is therefore 54 years old.
Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage: The video gave his age as 76, but he was born on April 16, 1966. He is therefore 60 years old.
Deputy Minister T. B. Sarath: The video showed his age as 75, but the Parliament’s website says he was born on August 9, 1967. He is therefore 59 years old.
MP Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi: The video gave his age as 75, but he was born on April 4, 1965. He is therefore 61 years old.
Deputy Minister and attorney Sunil Watagala: The video gave his age as 70, but the Parliament’s website says he was born on December 16, 1967. He is therefore 58 years old.
Minister K. D. Lal Kantha: The video gave his age as 73, but the Parliament’s website says he was born on August 18, 1964. He is therefore 62 years old.
We calculated the ages above as of October 13, 2026. Our fact check found that the ages given in the video were wrong for these 10 MPs. According to official Parliament birth dates, their ages range from 54 to 62, which is 11 to 22 years lower than the ages in the video.
When we asked the NPP media division, its media coordinator also said the ages in the video were incorrect and confirmed that the information on the Parliament’s official website was accurate.
Rizvie Salih and Tilvin Silva are also well under 75
Deputy Speaker Dr. Rizvie Salih’s date of birth is not given on Parliament’s official website. The Wikipedia and Manthri.lk pages we checked do not give a date of birth either. In a 2024 interview, he said he had served as a doctor since 1986.
We asked whether the Deputy Speaker was 77, as the video said. The NPP media division replied that the age in the video was incorrect and that Dr. Rizvie Salih was born on December 1, 1958, making him 67 now. We could not find an independent written source confirming his date of birth, so treat this only as the party spokesperson’s statement.
JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva is not a current Member of Parliament, so his details are not on Parliament’s official website. We therefore checked acceptable written sources to confirm his date of birth and age.
In a fact check we published on March 20, 2025, Tilvin Silva said he was born in 1956 and was about 27 at the time of Black July in 1983. A Daily Mirror article of February 23, 2026 also gave his date of birth as February 26, 1956.
The JVP told us that the video’s claim that Tilvin Silva was 77 was false and that, born in 1956, he was actually 70. Based on the birth details in these sources and from the party, the video’s statement about his age was incorrect.
Comparison of the ages in the video with the actual ages
| # | Politician | Party | Age in Viral Claims | Actual age (date of birth) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sugath Wasantha de Silva (National List MP) | NPP | 78 | 59 (July 26, 1967) | Parliament official website |
| 2 | Dr. Rizvie Salih (Deputy Speaker) | NPP | 77 | 67* (December 1, 1958) | NPP media division |
| 3 | Abubakar Athambawa (National List MP) | NPP | 77 | 58 (January 28, 1968) | Parliament official website |
| 4 | Upali Samarasinghe (Deputy Minister) | NPP | 76 | 58 (December 24, 1967) | Parliament official website |
| 5 | Tilvin Silva (JVP General Secretary) | JVP | 77 | 70 (February 26, 1956) | Tilvin Silva’s statement, a newspaper article and the JVP |
| 6 | Anura Karunathilaka (Minister) | NPP | 76 | 58 (December 31, 1967) | Parliament official website |
| 7 | Hiniduma Sunil Senevi (Minister) | NPP | 76 | 54 (July 21, 1972) | Parliament official website |
| 8 | Sunil Kumara Gamage (Minister) | NPP | 76 | 60 (April 16, 1966) | Parliament official website |
| 9 | T. B. Sarath (Deputy Minister) | NPP | 75 | 59 (August 9, 1967) | Parliament official website |
| 10 | Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi (MP) | NPP | 75 | 61 (April 4, 1965) | Parliament official website |
| 11 | K. D. Lal Kantha (Minister) | NPP | 73 | 62 (August 18, 1964) | Parliament official website |
| 12 | Sunil Watagala (Deputy Minister, attorney) | NPP | 70 | 58 (December 16, 1967) | Parliament official website |
We calculated the ages above as of October 13, 2026. The ages in the video were 7 to 22 years higher than the actual ages.
*Rizvie Salih’s date of birth is not given on the official Parliament website. It was provided by the NPP media division.
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Conclusion:
Our fact check found that, according to the birth dates published on the Parliament of Sri Lanka’s official website and other credible sources, the actual ages of the politicians were lower than the ages given in the video.
As of October 13, 2026, ten of the MPs in the viral posts were aged 54 to 62, Tilvin Silva was 70, and Rizvie Salih was 67, according to the party spokesperson. Only these two were over 65, and none of the 12 were over 75. The ages in the viral posts are therefore false.
Title: NPP Politicians’ Ages: Viral Claim That All 12 Are Over 75 Is False
Fact Check By: Sagarika Chathumali
Result: False
