Colombo: The Sri Lankan presidential election is one with many firsts. It’s the first election since the 2022 economic crisis and popular protests, the first election in which there was no clear frontrunner, and the first time in the nation’s history that a second round of counting of votes took place.
And the election result is no different: it’s the first time in Sri Lankan history that a Marxist will become president.
The 55-year-old Anura Kumara Dissanayake, known popularly as AKD, is now the ninth executive president of Sri Lanka—an emblem of the “system change” that the 2022 popular uprising, the aragalaya, demanded. The results were announced at around 7.20 pm on 22 September after a historic second round of counting of preferential votes in a calm and orderly election.
In a remarkable turnaround of political fortunes, AKD swept the 2024 polls after polling only 3 percent of the national vote when he contested in the 2019 elections. It’s also a moment for his party, the beleaguered Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, to formally enter mainstream politics after being on the margins for nearly 50 years.
In a post on X following his win, Dissanayake wrote, “The dream we have nurtured for centuries is finally coming true.”
“Our journey here has been paved by the sacrifices of so many who gave their sweat, tears, and even their lives for this cause. Their sacrifices are not forgotten. We hold the scepter of their hopes and struggles, knowing the responsibility it carries. The millions of eyes filled with hope and expectation push us forward, and together, we stand ready to rewrite Sri Lankan history,” he added.
The dream we have nurtured for centuries is finally coming true. This achievement is not the result of any single person’s work, but the collective effort of hundreds of thousands of you. Your commitment has brought us this far, and for that, I am deeply grateful. This victory… pic.twitter.com/N7fBN1YbQA
— Anura Kumara Dissanayake (@anuradisanayake) September 22, 2024
Dissanayake isn’t a political neophyte. He has been a member of parliament since 2000, and has campaigned for president in the past. His party has contested in every election for the past 30 years, since 1994. But it is only now that he is front and centre.
“President Anura Dissanayake, I entrust to you the care of the beloved child that is Sri Lanka,” wrote outgoing president Wickremesinghe to the country’s new president-elect, expected to be sworn in in a “simple ceremony” on Monday.
Dissanayake seemed to come out on top in this highly decisive election because of his hardline anti-corruption and anti-establishment stance. His main rivals were incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe and leader of the opposition Sajith Premadasa, both of whom come from political families. Wickremesinghe, a veteran politician who has been prime minister six times, took over in 2022 after the aragalaya ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and steered the country onto the path of economic recovery. He campaigned on the promise of economic stability, having achieved that over the past two years.
But neither Wickremesinghe nor Premadasa were prepared for the populist wave that Dissanayake rode all the way to victory.
It shows that while both campaigned on economic issues, Dissanayake’s support came from the Sinhala voters who are disillusioned with Sri Lanka’s chequered history with dynasty politics and corruption.
A 2015 Facebook post by Dissanayake went viral in the early hours of Sunday morning: “They tried to bury us,” he wrote, quoting a well-known phrase. “They didn’t know we were seeds.”
Also read: Lesson from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan: if you have no patience, you don’t deserve democracy
Rebranding the JVP
Dissanayake was born into a working-class family in Anuradhapura district’s Thambuttegama. His father was a labourer and his mother a home maker—a video of her arriving to vote for her son in an auto rickshaw went viral on polling day.
He was the first student from his entire village to go to the university, and became actively involved with the JVP in 1987 while at the University of Kelaniya, which is where his political career started.
“Looking back, I was never interested in getting a job and settling down. Politics was my passion,” he said in a 2015 interview to the Daily Mirror. “To be honest, I’ve always wanted to transform and improve our society.”
But to do so, Dissanayake’s political messaging had to involve rebranding his controversial party, the JVP, which is the biggest player in the coalition National People’s Power (NPP).
This is because institutional memory plays a big role in Sri Lanka, where the sociopolitical fabric has been ripped apart and stitched back up several times by ethnic conflict and the violent civil war.
The JVP is a Marxist, Sinhala Buddhist nationalist outfit founded in 1965. It carried out an armed insurrection in 1971, and the Indian armed forces were called in to help suppress the violence. Around 15,000 JVP cadre were reportedly arrested and over 10,000 Sri Lankans died.
This was the start of anti-India grouse for the JVP, which led a second insurrection against the presence of Indian troops on Sri Lankan soil following the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Peace Accord and the entry of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the backdrop of the civil war with LTTE.
The protests gained traction with Sinhala nationalists, especially in southern Sri Lanka. The JVP went after a list of “traitors”—including activists, politicians, teachers, students—even assassinating Vijaya Kumaratunga, popular film-star-turned-politician and Chandrika Bandaranaike’s husband. This insurrection went on until 1989, but reduced the JVP cadre and its support base significantly. The JVP has few takers among the Tamil population in Sri Lanka owing to its violent history.
The party then entered the political mainstream in the 1990s, contesting elections and winning one seat in 1994. After the war ended in 2009, the JVP’s support began to decline, their entire base captured by the SLFP (as they joined a coalition with the SLFP in 2004) and the Rajapaksa family under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership.
And this is when Dissanayake comes in.
Dissanayake took over the party’s leadership in 2014 and formed the NPP coalition with 25 other organisations, including civil society groups, in 2015.
“The 1988/89 period was a tremendous shock to us, and we can’t imagine how this happened. We admit that several atrocities took place, things which should never have happened, happened. We admit that,” he said in an interview. “It is now 25 years since this disastrous period, we have learnt several bitter lessons from it and we pledge that such incidents will never take place at the hands of the JVP.”
And the NPP is a conscious rebrand for the JVP, trying to distance itself from the party’s violent past. In 2022, they were able to position themselves as anti-establishment, and harness the frustration of angry crowds. And then there was no looking back for Dissanayake.
A vote for AKD, not JVP
After the 2022 aragalaya, Wickremesinghe came to power and cobbled together a government across party lines, reaching a deal with the International Monetary Fund to begin lifting Sri Lankan out of its deep economic crisis.
But Dissanayake and the NPP called the IMF deal, which involves higher taxes, “anti-people”. This political messaging gained a huge number of followers, especially among the youth, who had spearheaded the aragalaya.
This, along with a spirited grassroots campaign, began to turn the tides.
Subsequently, the party’s stance turned anti-establishment and anti-corruption—thereby offering a choice to voters disillusioned with the government as a whole. Wickremesinghe and Premadasa are both seen as establishment figures, and Dissanayake emerged as a fresh face of change.
“Make no mistake—this is a vote for Dissanayake, not for the NPP or the JVP,” said one analyst who requested not to be named. “We’ll have to see if this translates to parliamentary gains for his party.”
An incredibly charismatic speaker, Dissanayake appeals to the Sinhala majority and has highlighted the importance of transparency and accountability in government. His manifesto has also suggested sweeping reforms in education, health, and housing. But his win could also upset the ongoing economic reforms, since he’s against the IMF deal that Wickremesinghe reached.
“The implementation of the IMF programme has caused significant hardship for the people,” he said, promising to renegotiate the deal. “In pursuing economic goals, we must advance in a way that alleviates pressure on the public…. We aim to make the necessary changes gradually to ensure long-term stability.”
However, it remains to be seen how Dissanayake will be able to handle a smooth transition of power and address the government. Analysts expect issues with governance, especially over the next few months as he puts together an interim government—the NPP has only three seats in parliament. Many expect him to dissolve parliament and call for elections soon.
What also complicates matters is that Dissanayake is seen as “pro-China” and “anti-India”, having criticised some Indian projects in Sri Lanka like the Adani wind farm deal—even though he has also criticised the sale of the Hambantota Port to China.
But the IMF negotiations and geopolitics doesn’t matter to the average voter, who simply demand economic relief. Both taxes and cost of living are high, and many voters told ThePrint that that’s why they’ve voted for a glimmer of change.
“AKD is the man Sri Lanka needs,” said Ashay Karunaratne, a taxi driver in Colombo. “He is the only one who can bring in change. All our other leaders helped create the problems in this country because they are all corrupt thieves. AKD is the best leader for the future.”
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)