Watch: What does Dissanayake’s victory mean for Sri Lanka and India? | Realpolitik

In many ways, it was a crucial election for Sri Lanka. It was the first election since President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was booted out of power by a popular uprising in July 2022. It was an election that was largely fought on economic issues. It was an election where the Rajapksas, the family that dominated Sri Lanka’s politics for years, were not a significant factor–Namal Rajapaksa, son of former President and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, was one of the 38 candidates but was never seen as a frontrunner.

The fight was largely between three candidates — incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who assumed presidency after Gotabaya fled the country in 2022; opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, a party with Marxist origins.

While Wickremesinghe and Premadasa represented the old establishment, Dissanayake, a leftist who had earlier said what Sri Lanka wanted was a liberation struggle not just a regime change, pitched himself as an agent of change–the original promise of ‘Janatha Aragalaya (or People’s struggle), the mass movement that bought down the Rajapaksas. He promised to fix island nation’s battered economy and wipe out racism. His outsider image and promise to break from the past seemed to have helped him win the trust of Sri Lanka’s voters and script history. On September 23, two days after his election victory, Dissanayake was sworn in as the new President of Sri Lanka.

Stanly Johny and Meera Srinivasan discuss Dissanayake’s victory and the challenges he faces both on the domestic and foreign policy front.

Production: Aniket Singh Chauhan

Video: Johan Sathyadas, Shiva Raj

Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake during a meeting, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on September 23, 2024
| Photo Credit: PTI

Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Monday (September 23, 2024) promised to strengthen democracy and “work hard to win people’s trust”, with the disclaimer that he is no “magician”.

“I am not a magician; I am not a miracle-worker. There are things I know and don’t know. But I will commit myself to doing the right thing at all times, and lead a collective effort to rebuild our nation,” he said, in his first address as President, just after being sworn in at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo. It is the building that protesters stormed in July 2022, as they ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa amid a severe financial meltdown.

Mr. Dissanayake, 55, takes over the country’s top office when the island nation struggles to put a crippling economic crisis behind it. Scores of poor families are looking for urgent relief from the everyday economic strain amid high living costs and utility bills that shot up as part an IMF-led programme that introduced painful austerity measures.

Mr. Dissanayake secured 42.31 % of the votes to win the September 21 presidential election, that he closely fought with Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa and former President Ranil Wickremesinghe. His National People’s Power (NPP) Alliance campaigned on a plank of anti-corruption and has promised to change the country’s political culture.  Mr. Dissanayake’s victory marks a shift in Sri Lankan politics, away from the country’s traditional parties and political elite. He leads the NPP’s chief political constituent, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front), a party with Marxist-Leninist ideology.    

Although Mr. Dissanayake emerged winner in the national election, he did not secure the majority vote share among the country’s ethnic minority communities, especially the Tamils of the north and east. In a message apparently targeting them and others who voted for his rivals, he said: “Democracy helped me win. Some voted for me, and others didn’t. But my pledge is to work hard to win the trust of those who didn’t vote for me as well. This is an important part of my Presidency.” Further, he pledged support to businesses and said he would work with all international actors, while keeping Sri Lanka’s best interests in mind.

President Dissanayake on Monday (September 23, 2024) appointed secretaries to various ministers. He is expected to appoint a new Cabinet on Tuesday (September 24, 2024), Colombo-based political sources said.

Police commandos stand guard, as a countrywide curfew was imposed then, outside a ballot counting center during the presidential election in Colombo, on September 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

In a historic first, Sri Lanka’s presidential election on Sunday (September 22, 2024) went into a second round of counting after no candidate secured over 50% vote needed to be declared the winner.

The latest results showed Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party’s broader front National People’s Power (NPP) had won 39.52% of the votes counted.

Sri Lanka elections result LIVE

Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa of Samagi Jana Balawegaya is in second place with nearly 34.28% of the total vote.

Sri Lankans voted on Saturday (September 21, 2024) to elect a new president in the first election since the economic meltdown in 2022.

Election Commission Chairman R M A L Rathnayake said that Dissanayake and Premadasa have secured maximum votes in the 2024 presidential election.

However, he said that as neither has secured more than 50% vote, the second preference vote will be counted and added to these two candidates.

Voters in Sri Lanka elect a single winner by ranking up to three candidates in order of preference. If a candidate receives an absolute majority, they will be declared the winner. If not, a second round of counting will commence, with second and third-choice votes then taken into account.

Mr. Rathnayake said the new President will be declared elected after the cumulative votes and preference votes are counted.

He also said that the remaining candidates will not be considered for the preference vote.

Dissanayake, the leader of the Marxist JVP’s broader front National People’s Power (NPP), is leading in the cumulative votes.

The National People’s Power (NPP) leader was earlier heading for a clear win but his cumulative votes dropped when most of the votes were counted.

No election in Sri Lanka has ever progressed to the second round of counting, as single candidates have always emerged as clear winners based on first-preference votes.

Sri Lanka’s northern Tamil voters are torn this presidential election, between a candidate who may win, and one who will certainly lose.

While some are backing one of the frontrunners among the Sinhalese candidates, others have decided to support a Tamil candidate. Every voter knows well that “Tamil common candidate” P. Ariyanethiran — fielded jointly by some political and civil society groups based in the island nation’s north and east — cannot win, given the numeric reality of Sri Lanka’s electoral map. The Sinhalese majority make up around 75 % of the country that was torn apart by bitter ethnic conflict between the two communities. All the same, many Tamil voters see him personifying their grievances.

GROUND ZERO: A poverty of hope among Sri Lankan Tamils

“After the civil war ended in 2009, our people hoped that even if their political rights were denied, they could live with some security and dignity. Listening to our [Tamil] political leadership, they backed different candidates in past elections. What did we gain?” asks Fr. Santhiyogu Marcus, President of the Mannar Citizens Committee, an influential civil society group in the coastal district.

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For at least two decades Tamils had a straightforward choice and delivered a bloc vote — except when the rebel Tamil Tigers enforced a boycott in 2005 — in the presidential elections. They despised the Rajapaksa clan, accused of serious human rights violations during and after the civil war. They emphatically rejected Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2010 and 2015, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019. The main Tamil party representing Tamils of the north and east, too, invariably backed the chief challenger of the Rajapaksas in every national election.

Altered landscape

However, this is the first election campaign in 20 years that is not dominated by a Rajapaksa surname. Two years after a people’s uprising evicted Mr. Gotabaya from office in 2022, when the island faced a crushing economic crisis, Sri Lanka’s political terrain looks starkly different. The September 21 election, the first poll since, has three candidates at the fore – incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, opposition politicians Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, one of whom is expected to win.

“Ariyanethiran is not seen as an individual who will win this contest, but as someone who is a symbol of our identity and struggles,” Fr. Marcus observes. Many acknowledge his bleak electoral prospects but say they will back him nevertheless, to deliver a “strong message” to the southern political establishment and the international community. On the other hand, critics of the move term it “political suicide”. Abandoning pragmatic negotiation with the southern leadership would further isolate Tamils and weaken their bargaining power, they contend.

Fifteen years after the civil war ended, after claiming several tens of thousands of civilian lives, Tamils in the north and east are unable to live in peace. Their lands are systematically grabbed by state agencies, their call for truth and justice over alleged war crimes remain, the whereabouts of scores of forcibly missing persons are unknown, a just political solution is elusive, and the war-battered economy has not created decent jobs or livelihoods. 

Also read: In Sri Lanka’s north, a search for livelihoods and loved ones

In this context, sections see backing the Tamil candidate as a way of airing their frustration – not just with the national leadership, but also with their own, deeply divided Tamil political leadership. “Tamil leaders are showing us that they cannot be united in this struggle. The parties have split and there are so many splinter groups. They have weakened our position so much,” says K. Rajachandran, leader of a Jaffna-based fisheries cooperative. “So, we want to tell our Tamil politicians, even if you can’t stand united, the Tamil people will come together behind this common candidate.”

Fragmented Tamil polity

The northern Tamil polity is in shreds, with prominent leaders taking poll positions ranging from backing a southern candidate; campaigning for the Tamil “common candidate”; to boycotting the polls altogether.

The once-powerful Tamil National Alliance (TNA), led by the prominent Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), has collapsed, with two other constituents breaking away some years ago. Even the ITAK is marred by serious internal divisions, seen in the conflicting positions aired by its members on a daily basis in the run up to the polls. The contradictions within were no secret earlier but have become more pronounced after the passing of senior Tamil leader R. Sampanthan in June.

Earlier this month, the ITAK, through its Jaffna legislator M.A. Sumanthiran, announced its support for presidential aspirant Mr. Premadasa, a popular choice among Tamils who have decided to back a southern leader. Explaining its decision on Monday, the party said although none of the three leading candidates’ manifestos fully accommodated Tamils’ basic political demands, Mr. Premadasa’s assurance was “in relative terms, somewhat satisfactory”. In his manifesto, Mr. Premadasa has promised to fully implement the 13^th Amendment, which devolves some power to the provinces, and swiftly hold elections to the now-defunct provincial councils.

Meanwhile, ITAK legislator Sivagnanam Shritharan is canvassing for Mr. Ariyanethiran, and senior leader Mavai Senathirajah continues to give mixed signals.

“Voters are finding it very confusing this election,” notes Rajany Rajeshwary, founder of Vallamai, a Jaffna-based movement for social change. While she appreciates why some people are drawn to the Tamil candidate, her concern is that if he does poorly, it will defeat its political motive. “I fear that our votes will be split, and we will expose our weakness,” she says. Tamils, she argues, must also factor in concerns of Tamil-speaking Muslims [they identify as a separate ethnic group] and fellow Tamils of the hill country to forge a strong, consolidated political position.

Meanwhile some voters, especially youth, are disillusioned. They voice little hope about their future, regardless of a “tactical vote” for a Sinhalese contestant or a “principled vote” for a Tamil candidate this election. “Some of us have no plans or resources to go abroad,” says Marynathan Edison, a fisherman and environmentalist in Mannar. “We will live in this country until we die. In the south, they tell us ‘think and vote as a Sri Lankan’. How can I do that when their discriminatory actions keep reminding me that I am Tamil?” he asks.

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