The Rajapaksas’ political party met on Monday to discuss strategy ahead of Sri Lanka’s presidential polls.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or People’s Front) — led by the once-powerful Rajapaksa clan which was deposed from power in 2022 — has said it will not back President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the presidential polls in September.

The decision, announced after the party’s central committee’s meeting on Monday, marks the withdrawal of the Rajapaksas’ support to Mr. Wickremesinghe, two years after they helped him rise to the country’s most powerful office. He replaced former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned in July 2022, in the wake of a mass uprising that blamed him chiefly for the country’s dramatic economic crash.

Ranil Wickremesinghe | From lone MP to PM 

In 2021, Mr. Wickremesinghe was the United National Party’s (UNP) lone MP in parliament, following his party’s poll debacle in the 2020 general election. In May 2022, Mr. Gotabaya appointed him Prime Minister, in place of Mr. Mahinda, who resigned amid the surging protests. After Mr. Gotabaya stepped down in July 2022, Mr. Wickremesinghe won an urgent parliamentary vote with the SLPP’s support, and has since relied on it to pass several legislations.

While Mr. Wickremesinghe earned praise from some for taking over the country’s leadership at a critical time, and “stabilising” its battered economy, his dependence on and association with the Rajapaksas have drawn criticism from those who sought a clean break from the Rajapaksa administration tainted by allegations of corruption and mismanagement. In November 2023, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled that the Rajapaksa brothers (Mr. Mahinda, Mr. Gotabaya and Mr. Basil), along with other top officials in their government [2019 to 2022] “demonstrably contributed to” the country’s devastating economic crisis and violated “public trust”, but they faced no consequence.

On their party’s poll-time decision, SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam said Mr. Wickremesinghe’s policies were not agreeable to members. “For instance, our party has a position on whether and how to go about privatising national assets. But the President does not care about national assets or the underprivileged people of this country,” he told The Hindu on Tuesday.  Asked about the candidate the party would field, Mr. Kariyawasam said: “That decision has not been taken as yet,” amid wide speculation that a non-Rajapaksa may be nominated for the first time.

Meanwhile, some SLPP members, especially those who are part of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s Cabinet, are expected to stay with him in the coming election, signalling a virtual split in the SLPP.  

Namal Rajapaksa, son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the party’s national organiser, has blamed Mr. Wickremesinghe for dividing the party that backed him over the last two years. Following Monday’s decision, Mr. Namal, a parliamentarian from the southern Hambantota district, said on the social media platform ‘X’: “With our decision to field our own candidate, we acknowledge past challenges and commit to unity, economic stability, and restoring trust.”  

For now, this leaves Mr. Wickremesinghe with what remains of his UNP —its breakaway faction, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB or United People’s Force), is the main opposition party — a faction of the SLPP, and certain other backers, including from parties representing the island nation’s minority Tamils, Muslims, and Malaiyaha (hill country) Tamils. Contesting this election as an independent candidate, Mr. Wickremesinghe faces at least two strong challengers in Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who leads the opposition National People’s Power (NPP) alliance.

In a media statement on Tuesday evening, the President’s office said 92 legislators, of the 225-member House, pledged their support to him.  

Colombo:

Sri Lanka’s first presidential elections since an unprecedented economic crisis spurred widespread unrest will be held in September, the election commission said Friday. 

The election will be the first test of the public mood since the height of the 2022 downturn, which caused months of food, fuel and medicine shortages across the island nation. 

President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 75, who took office after street protests forced his predecessor to flee the country, has strongly hinted he plans to run. 

He will face at least two rivals campaigning against austerity measures his government imposed to satisfy an International Monetary Fund bailout package.

The five-week campaign announced by the commission will conclude with a September 21 vote in a country still struggling with a fragile economic recovery and endemic discontent over cost of living issues. 

Economic issues are expected to dominate the campaign as the country emerges from its worst-ever recession in 2022, when the GDP shrank by a record 7.8 percent.

Inflation has since returned to normal levels from its peak of 70 percent at the height of the crisis. 

Wickremesinghe has also successfully negotiated a restructure of Sri Lanka’s $46 billion foreign debt with bilateral lenders including China, following a 2022 government default. 

But his policies to balance the government’s books by hiking taxes and withdrawing generous utility subsidies have been deeply unpopular with the public.

While the months-long food, fuel and medicine shortages seen at the peak of the economic crisis are now a distant memory, many Sri Lankans say Wickremesinghe’s austerity measures have left them struggling to make ends meet. 

Opposition parties have vowed to renegotiate terms of the $2.9 billion IMF bailout Wickremesinghe negotiated last year.

The president’s main challenger so far is Sajith Premadasa, 57, a one-time party ally and current opposition leader.

Premadasa has vowed to continue with economic reforms and the IMF programme but pledged to cushion the public by reducing the tax increases Wickremesinghe imposed to shore up state revenue. 

A leftist party is also fielding its leader, 55-year-old former agriculture minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is campaigning against plans to privatise state companies

Wickremesinghe took office following the government default in 2022, after a huge crowd stormed predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s compound. 

Rajapaksa, who was accused of steering Sri Lanka into the crisis through economic mismanagement, temporarily fled abroad and issued his resignation from Singapore.

Local elections were due to be held last year but postponed indefinitely after the government insisted it had no money to conduct a nationwide vote. 

More than 17 million Sri Lankans over the age of 18 are eligible to cast a ballot.

The election commission has allocated $33 million (10 billion rupees) for this year’s presidential poll.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Sri Lanka’s former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, and Sri Lanka’s former President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Sri Lanka’s powerful Rajapaksa clan, which suffered political battering due to the country’s worst economic crisis in 2022, will launch its political comeback bid on Sunday by targeting the impending elections.

Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, ex-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa were ousted from power during anti-government protests following the crippling financial and political crisis in 2022.

The ruling Sri Lanka People’s Front of the Rajapaksas, commonly known by its Sinhalese name Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), will hold a public rally later in the day in the north central rural town of Thalawa, party member and former Minister SM Chandrasena told reporters.

He said that Mahinda Rajapaksa would inaugurate the rally, aiming to prepare the party grassroots for the major elections — the presidential or the parliamentary.

“We will start our campaign to gear the party for whatever the election that comes first,” Mr. Chandrasena said.

According to the Election Act, the presidential election should occur before the parliamentary elections. The next parliamentary election is not due before August 2025.

On Wednesday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe reiterated his intention to hold the presidential election this year ahead of the parliamentary election.

The SLPP, however, wants the parliamentary election ahead of the scheduled 2025 date.

Earlier this month, the Elections Commission said the presidential election would be conducted at a date between September 17 and October 16.

The SLPP is yet to announce its candidate, while the two major opposition camps have already announced their presidential candidates.

The SLPP went into hiding after the massive street protests began in early 2022, which caused the resignation of the then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The SLPP was forced to elect arch-rival Wickremesinghe to serve the balance term of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

One of the SLPP Members of Parliament was killed by an angry mob. The properties of nearly 100 other party seniors were set on fire in the outpouring of public outrage over their inability to handle the economic crisis.