Sri Lankans elected leftist politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake as the new president in the debt-ridden country’s first election since its economy collapsed in 2022.
The 55-year-old defeated his nearest rival, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, to emerge as the clear winner after a historic second round of counting, which included second-preference votes, after no candidate won more than 50 per cent of the vote in the first round. Outgoing president Ranil Wikremesinghe, appointed to the office by parliament after the 2022 crisis, finished third.
Remarkable turnaround
It’s a remarkable turnaround for Dissanayake, who won just 3 per cent of the votes in the 2019 election. Dissanayake, who contested as candidate for the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, won over voters with his anti-corruption platform and pro-poor policies, says the BBC.
He has vowed to reopen negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over its $3 billion bailout, which came with spending cuts and tax hikes that proved deeply unpopular with voters, reports Bloomberg.
Sri Lanka is restructuring the terms of its debt payments with foreign and domestic lenders, as mandated by the IMF. The main focus has been the country’s $36 billion in foreign debt, of which $7 billion is owed to China, its biggest bilateral creditor.
Dissanayake, who has a degree in physics, entered politics as a student in 1987, during one of Sri Lanka’s bloodiest periods.
Marxist political party
From 1987 to 1989, the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) — a Marxist political party with which Dissanayake later became closely associated — spearheaded an armed revolt against the Sri Lankan government.
The insurrection, spurred by disgruntled youth, precipitated a conflict which claimed thousands of lives.
Dissanayake, who was elected to the JVP’s central committee in 1997 and became its leader in 2008, has since apologised for the “season of terror”.
The JVP, which currently has just three seats in parliament, is part of the NPP coalition headed by Dissanayake.
Dissanayake wants to dissolve parliament
Dissanayake has repeatedly said he will dissolve parliament if elected president in order to have a clean slate. In a recent interview with BBC Sinhala , he said he would do this within days of being elected.
During the election campaign, he also promised to hold investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.
On April 21, 2019, a wave of deadly blasts ripped through churches and international hotels across the capital Colombo, killing at least 290 people and injuring hundreds more.
Investigations so far have failed to reveal how the coordinated attacks occurred.
Some have accused the former government, led by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, of obstructing investigations.
Former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was driven out of Sri Lanka in 2022 by mass protests sparked by the economic meltdown.
Years of under-taxation, weak exports and major policy errors, combined with the Covid-19 pandemic, dried up the country’s foreign exchange reserves. Public debt reached more than $83 billion and inflation soared to 70 per cent.
Rajapaksa and his government were blamed for the crisis.
Although his successor, President Wickremesinghe, introduced economic reforms that brought down inflation and strengthened the Sri Lankan rupee, people continued to feel the pinch.
Dissanayake promised tough anti-corruption measures, bigger welfare schemes and tax cuts if elected.
About 76 per cent of Sri Lanka’s 17.1 million electorate turned out to vote in Saturday’s election, according to officials.