Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a left-wing candidate, emerged victorious in Sri Lanka’s Presidential elections on Sunday, after a historic second round of counting.
The 55-year-old lawmaker has secured 42% of the total votes against his closest rival, Sajith Premadasa, who secured 32% of the votes. Ironically, incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over after former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been rendered third with only 17% of the votes.
With a Marxist-leaning president emerging in Sri Lanka, there are several speculations over how Mr Dissanayake will steer the island nation sailing through one of the roughest phases of its existence.
While Mr Dissanayake’s victory is remarkable in the Sri Lankan contest, where presidents have been elected hitherto from powerful political lineage, his rule may not be a smooth sail, given the current scenario.
The leader of the left-wing Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP – Peoples Liberation Front), which traversed through a complicated and blood-laced trajectory from its inception in July 1970, has to walk a different course than what his hardline communist comrades would’ve expected him to.
Several challenges await him on the way that would demand JVP shed more of its leftist baggage like what it did in the late 1990s, a decade after its founder Rohana Wijeweera was killed by the Sri Lankan government, along with thousands of party workers, leaders and sympathisers.
The challenges before Dissanayake
The IMF
In 2022, former president Mr Rajapaksa had to flee the country due to a people’s rebellion against his disastrous policies that exacerbated economic mayhem in the country. Mr Rajapaksa’s reign was synonymous with absolute corruption, immense foreign debts and gross financial mismanagement. When Mr Wickremesinghe was voted as the president to save the economy, he had no options but to seek a $2.9bn bail package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The IMF bail came with heavy conditions, including extreme austerity and pro-liberal reformation of governance to provide opportunities for western capital. Mr Wickremesinghe followed the directions of the IMF to catapult the economy from shambles but the austerity measures have hit the poor the hardest, turning them against his rule.
Mr Dissanayake fought the election with a promise to re-negotiate the bail terms with the IMF. He has promised greater relief for the poor and the working class. However, it’s not clear how much the IMF will allow the populist leftist leader to manoeuvre as it has been extremely firm on its terms, even though they ruin the lives of the poor in the global south, according to activists.
In March 2024, representatives of the IMF met the Jathika Jana Balawegaya (National People’s Power or NPP)—the coalition of 28 left-leaning parties and mass organisations led by the JVP—representatives at the Shangri La in Colombo to discuss the latter’s views on the debt restructuring and corruption in the process.
The 90-minute meeting was attended by the IMF’s Sri Lanka operations head Peter Breuer along with IMF’s Deputy Resident Representative Sarvath Jahan, Katsiaryna Svieydzenka and Manavi Abeywickrama.
From the NPP’s side, National Executive Members Vijitha Herath MP and Muditha Nanayakkara, and Economic Council members Professor Anil Jayantha, Professor Seetha Bandara, Dr Harshana Suriyapperuma and Sunil Handunnetthi attended the meeting.
It appears that the NPP managed to cajole the IMF into its overall agenda over the debt restructuring and hence, despite a communist candidate leading an election battle against the incumbent pro-US president, there was minimal interference in the Sri Lankan elections from the West.
However, for Mr Dissanayake, it would be extremely hard to re-negotiate the terms as the deadline for repaying the debt is in 2027 and any failure on his part to deliver the much-awaited relief to the poor, who have been suffering the brunt of the austerity, can cause sufferings for the JVP.
In the meantime, Mr Dissanayake has announced providing a monthly grant from SLRs 10,000 (£24.64/$32.83) upwards to low-income families in Sri Lanka. He also promised Rs 5,000 (£12.32/$16.42) monthly support to senior citizens, Rs 10,000 to persons with disabilities from low-income families and Rs 10,000 to those suffering from chronic illnesses on a need basis.
These expenses will have an immense impact on the poor of Sri Lanka but will also trouble the repayment of the IMF’s loan. Mr Dissanayake’s plan to revive the economy and fill the deficit lies in a programme to turn Sri Lanka into a manufacturing and IT hub. However, with a time bomb of repayment ticking, it’s a big question how Mr Dissanayake will balance the two antagonistic forces—the poor and the IMF.
The NPP’s agenda of providing fair wages to the workers, school teachers, and employees will also run in odd to the IMF’s diktats that Mr Dissanayake’s predecessor has quietly accepted.
If the IMF loans aren’t restructured, then the NPP will face a situation similar to the Syriza in Greece, a left-wing party that rose to power but fell very soon for challenging the ‘troika’— IMF-European Commission-European Central Bank.
Geopolitics
The relations between JVP and Sri Lanka’s closest and largest neighbour India were never pleasant.
Hearing of an uprising by the JVP in 1971, India sent military support, including MiG bombers, to the far-right government that unleashed barbaric atrocities on the party and its supporters.
JVP was also at odds with India when it supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in the northern part of the island.
It also opposed India’s entry in crushing the LTTE rebellion, which led to a large-scale massacre of the JVP rank and file, including Mr Wijeweera in 1989.
While the communist party keeps a warm relationship with China, against which India and the US have formed a coalition in the Indian Ocean-Pacific Ocean region (Indo-Pacific), it has been changing its attitude towards India and has been adopting a far more pragmatic one compared to its earlier avatar.
In December 2023, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government suddenly invited JVP leaders like Mr Dissanayake, Vijitha Herath and other NPP leaders for a 10-day tour to India.
When asked why India has invited them, Mr Herath had told the JVP’s mouthpiece Red Power that he believes, “They would have judged that ours is the most potent political movement in Sri Lanka. They would know that the group that forms the next government would be the NPP, and ours would be the group that wins the next presidential election. They would want to establish a diplomatic relationship with the group that will rule the country next.”
Though the India visit by the NPP leaders in February created commotions in Sri Lankan politics, the visit was an indication that New Delhi realised that the left would come to power this year.
The delegation met Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and other officials.
They travelled to Mr Modi’s home state of Gujarat and met Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Balraj Rajput.
They also travelled to the left-ruled Kerala and met the industry minister and late Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury as well.
Mr Doval met Mr Dissanayake even a month before the election. The meeting in Colombo raised questions over India’s growing interest in the NPP.
New Delhi’s eagerness to embrace a hostile party has been rooted in India’s interests in the island nation. India is worried about Sri Lanka’s closeness with China and the interests of the US-backed Adani Enterprises’ wind power project in the country.
The port-to-power conglomerate owned by controversial Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, who is perceived as close to Mr Modi, has also expressed plans to run three airports in the country.
Adani Enterprises has planned to invest $1bn in Sri Lanka’s renewable energy sector. However, it also faced severe opposition in the island nation.
Behind offering an olive branch to the JVP and Mr Dissanayake, India’s intention may also be to protect Mr Adani’s interests in the island.
Surprisingly, a few days before the elections, Mr Dissanayake had announced that if elected he would cancel the wind power project of Mr Adani in Sri Lanka.
If Mr Dissanayake cancels Mr Adani’s projects, despite emphasising renewable energy in the NPP manifesto, in that case, his government will get into a cauldron stoked by its powerful neighbour and enter another stage of instability.
It’s to be seen whether Mr Dissanayake would manage to traverse this geopolitical trapeze of avoiding the India-US nexus’s shackles while maintaining stability in Sri Lanka.
Dissanayake’s victory: A turning point?
Mr Dissanayake-led NPP brings along fresh air to Sri Lankan politics, hitherto dominated by a handful of elites. For the first time, the Sri Lankan voters have elected someone from a humble background to the country’s top post, although none of the candidates in the fray could garner more than 50% of votes.
In the NPP’s manifesto, Mr Dissanayake has emphasised industries, social security, education and healthcare. The NPP will seek foreign direct investment for growth as well as improve governance and nurture Sri Lanka’s rich resources.
The NPP has also promised to join multilateral institutions like BRICS+, ASEAN, etc, and stressed maintaining a free and pragmatic foreign policy.
It has been the only political bloc in Sri Lanka that takes an unapologetic stand opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the US’s role in stoking tensions around the world.
It also opposes regional bullies and hegemonic planks of others.
The JVP, under Mr Dissanayake, has been mending ties with different countries, people and international organisations much before coming to power. The efforts of the party in Sri Lankan politics as well as its external networking helped to establish itself as a decisive force in the country’s polity.
Mr Dissanayake-led NPP wants to abolish the executive-style presidency by winning a majority in the Parliament and also wants to bring socio-economic transformation by changing the constitution.
Long back, in 2019, Mr Dissanayake had said in an interview with the Red Power, “For, the executive presidency in our country has been held by despots as well as jesters and they have exceedingly displayed the destructive nature of the position. Hence, our country need not continue with the post of the executive presidency any more. Our stand is that the executive presidency should be abolished. However, we’d be able to achieve this only if we win the majority in Parliament after our victory at the presidential election.”
To win a majority in the Parliament, which is a tough job, Mr Dissanayake has to dismiss the current one. It may turn into a risky gamble as the NPP has a meagre presence —three out of 225 seats—in the parliament.
It only got 3.84% votes in 2020.
If Mr Dissanayake manages to fulfil his promises, starting with a new constitution, restarting stalled elections at all levels, increasing income opportunities for youth and re-negotiating the debts with the IMF, he can bring the much-needed changes awaited by the people who have so far seen massive corruptions, inflation and mindless violence in the country.
However, as he has to operate from a precarious position, it’s not going to be a cakewalk for him.
In 2019, he had said, “For seven decades the people in our country have had the experience and proof that the country cannot be taken forward with a mere change of individuals. We have wasted enough time to understand this truth. As such, what our country needs today is a broad transformation of the socio-economic structure. We have already presented the alternative programme necessary for such a transformation.”
If his party manages to win a majority in the parliamentary poll, then he will have a good scope to pulverise the Opposition and implement the core policies of the NPP. He also has to tackle immense pressure, including economic, from the India-US bloc. He can’t forge a strong alliance with China, despite having strong ties with the country, fearing a domestic upheaval.
He has to also fight a lot of demons that have existed in Sri Lanka for the last 76 years, sponsored by external and internal forces.
In case he fails, it will not just be his failure, it will also push the NPP, especially the JVP, into another dark phase, from where it’d again take decades for it to return to power.
