The sweeping majority secured by Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition in the snap parliamentary election on November 14 marks a major shift in the country’s electoral landscape. Cutting across ethnic and religious differences, Sri Lankans swept the National People’s Power (NPP) front to a landslide victory, granting Dissanayake’s alliance a total of 141 seats out of 225.
“This result is surprising to some extent – no political party has secured a two-thirds majority in parliament in the last two decades,” explains Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. The NPP’s transformation from holding just three seats in the last parliament to a commanding majority is particularly remarkable: “It’s great news because it means there will be no coalition politics,” adds Swain, speaking to Reset DOC.
Swain highlights the coalition’s breakthrough in the Jaffna district, traditionally a stronghold of Tamil separatists. “For the first time, a party from the south, a mainstream party, has won majority support in northern Sri Lanka. This will bolster Dissanayake’s legitimacy, especially given the historical tensions.” Ethnic Tamil rebels – led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – fought a decades-long civil war that ended in 2009. The conflict, marked by atrocities on both sides, claimed over 100,000 lives and left deep scars on the island’s social fabric.
Barely seven weeks into his presidency, Dissanayake is already making history. Elected in late September as Sri Lanka’s 10th president – and the first from a third party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) – he is the most left-leaning leader in the country’s post-independence history. Historically associated with radical Marxism and ethno-nationalism, the JVP has, under Dissanayake’s decade-long leadership, shifted toward a more centrist and inclusive agenda.
Dissanayake’s election was seen as heralding a “new era of renaissance” for a country that has faced its worst economic crisis since becoming independent and has defaulted on its external debt. In July 2022, at the peak of the food and energy crisis, public frustration over the economic situation, worsened by widespread shortages of essentials, reached a breaking point. Angry mobs stormed the residence of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, prompting his resignation just months after his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, had stepped down. The Rajapaksa is one of Sri Lanka’s most powerful families – or rather a political dynasty. Many of its members have held prominent positions in the state, particularly since Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected president in 2005. Over the years, they have been accused of authoritarianism, nepotism, mismanagement and corruption. After two decades of dominating Sri Lankan politics, the Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party was all but annihilated in this parliamentary election, securing only two seats.
Dissanayake, a veteran politician yet an outsider to Sri Lanka’s dynastic politics, campaigned on an anti-corruption and pro-poor platform. His message resonated with millions struggling to cope with soaring costs of living, exacerbated by tax hikes and austerity measures imposed to address the economic crisis, and who had grown weary of the corruption and mismanagement of past administrations. A country of 22 million people, Sri Lanka experienced a profound economic crisis in 2022, triggered by a severe shortage of foreign currency that led to a sovereign default and bankruptcy. The economy contracted by 7.3 percent in 2022 and a further 2.3 percent last year. A 2.9-billion-dollar bailout program from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has initiated a slow recovery; however, the high cost of living remains a pressing issue for many citizens.
Since the 1950s, Sri Lanka has relied on 16 IMF loans, with the most recent bailouts in 2009 and 2016. In March 2023, IMF approved a 3 billion dollars package under a new arrangement for the island. The first tranche of 330 million dollars was released soon after the agreement, with an additional 3 billion set to be disbursed by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other lenders. The Ranil Wickremesinghe administration, which led the country after Rajapaksa’s resignation, implemented many reforms in line with IMF conditions, including significant and widely unpopular tax increases. Upon being elected president, Dissanayake pledged to renegotiate the controversial IMF bailout signed by his predecessor.
“The previous government did not even consider negotiating terms with the IMF. It was all too willing to grovel before the global powers and ran the economy adhering to the benchmarks and recommendations of western institutions. These economic policies benefited the elite in the country, while the burden from the rise in VAT, the market pricing of energy, the halving of real wages for many and the cost of living doubling have all hit working people,” wrote political economist Ahilan Kadirgamar, senior lecturer at the University of Jaffna, soon after Dissanayake became president in September. “It is Dissanayake’s strength in parliament, and the national consensus he can forge, that will determine his bargaining power with the IMF and the extent to which he can keep the elite in the country at bay”. The last elections delivered an unequivocal mandate.
“What he has done after becoming president is to accept that he needs to follow whatever the IMF restrictions are,” according to Swain. “His tenure will be a real balancing act; he has to figure out how he can stop the people’s dissatisfaction while following the policies the IMF has put forward. So, it is a difficult task, but he has the popular support – not only for him but also for his government, as well as from the minorities”.
On Monday, Dissanayake installed a new 22-member cabinet, which includes several young MPs, and reappointed Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya – the first woman to hold the seat in 24 years – to carry forward his ambitious reform agenda while rebuilding the country’s shattered economy. The president “urged the IMF to maintain a balanced approach” that considers the hardships faced by the citizens, according a statement from his office.
“The youth have been the force behind uprooting the established parties and the family stronghold of these political leaders and bringing these new people to power with such a massive majority. The youth has been very much affected by the crisis,” continues Swain. “Youth were also at the forefront of the uprising [known as the aragalaya, the “struggle,” Editor’s note], which overthrew the Rajapaksas, and they have been also a political force in this election and the presidential election. This happened due to youth unemployment and the economic crisis – there is a lot of aspirational youth in Sri Lanka who are looking for opportunities. And though they have supported the now-ruling party, if the economic and job situation are not addressed by the president, then they will be turning against him quite soon.”
As the Dissanayake government works to meet the IMF targets, Sri Lankans now expect some relief from the harsh austerity measures – a well-known issue in developing counties and beyond.
Cover photo: Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake shows his inked finger after casting his vote for the parliamentary election in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on November 14, 2024 (Photo by Tharaka Basnayaka / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP)
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