After decades of instability, subpar growth and economic hardship, a disillusioned populace of Sri Lanka has rejected the established political forces of the island nation in the presidential vote on Saturday. They have entrusted Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People’s Power from the political fringe to lead the nation.
Dissanayake was inducted to politics of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in 1988 that remained an outlier political force despite its waging two uprisings or insurrections in the past. This time JVP as part of a wider alliance, NPP successfully appealed to the disgruntled masses. He trounced Sajith Premadasa, son of slain President Ranasinghe Premadasa handsomely. Incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the architect of unpopular economic recovery measures and high taxes at the behest of the International Monetary Fund, was relegated to a distant third.
How the election has been markedly different
The election has virtually put an end to decades old two party-led alliance system between the United National Party (UNP) and the Srilankan Freedom Party (SLFP), both of which started losing touch with people’s aspirations for differing reasons.
Beyond political expediency resorted to by these major political forces, the general masses have also been fade up with failed rural economy and struggling agriculture, continued economic mismanagement and corruption under successive governments. They perhaps wanted to give NPP a chance as the third force in Sri Lankan politics in the aftermath of deep economic crises that saw unprecedented protests in 2022, popularly known as Aragayala (people’s struggle). Buddhist and racial chauvinism lost their usual appeal during this people’s movement. The general masses found the NPP’s pronouncements closer to the spirit of the Aragayala.
The movement of 2022 dispatched the Rajapaksa clan, and painted Ranil Wickremesinghe as their protector and as a symbol of the unjust, exploitative elitist system. President Ranil certainly had the hard task of implementing a slew of austerity measures that increased cost of living and affected people’s wellbeing. Poor people and the middle class have been bearing the major brunt of the economic policies and measures that Ranil pursued at the advice of the International Monetary Fund. Hence, issues of the poor, rural areas and agriculture, and the middle class assumed huge significance at the electoral campaign, signalling a departure from past tradition of prioritising urban areas and issues of the traders-industrialists, rich and the elite.
Sinhala nationalism that Mahinda Rajapaksa exploited for political power was rendered to a non-issue. Extreme Buddhism lost its appeal for its overuse in the last few decades and close linkages with the discredited Rajapaksa clan. Logically, Anura Dissanayeke kept distance from the traditional electoral focus on ethnic and cultural nationalism. Similarly, Sajith Premadasa also ran his campaign on a Tamil- Sinhala amity and religious inclusion. Terrorism and efforts to link the Muslim community to it did not generate any traction. As such, this is perhaps the first election in about four decades where distributive justice and social inclusion became the centre of political discourse.
The election also remained generally free from geo-political considerations that have been prominent in earlier elections. The Sri Lankan media also played a mature role, by not highlighting all kinds of divisive issues. Most importantly, the election commission of Sri Lanka, aided by the largely weakened bureaucracy, has been able to manage an electoral process with neutrality and without any major debate.
What it entails for the island and its neighbourhood
The JVP has a major challenge of taking lessons from failed uprisings for the creation of a socialist state and from its losing significant political clout two decades back. It will need to moderate its approaches to dilute its rhetoric on class struggles and remain close to mainstream politics. Then, Sri Lanka may enjoy a peaceful period domestically and contribute to regional peace and amity externally.
The ideological moorings of the NPP such as agrarian socialism and democratic socialism will be tested in the wider statecraft, requiring flexibility and compromise. Domestically, JVP or NPP must succeed to build bridges with the Tamil community and other minorities for its strong opposition to the peace process between the Sinhala and the Tamils two decades ago. It will have to appreciate value of capital and capital formation, and employment generating private sector. All these will soon be tested at the next parliamentary election which is not far.
Externally, Sri Lanka, for decades, has been struggling to balance China and India that created immense instability for the island nation. If the international community can overcome their inflated sensitivity of dealing with a left-leaning president and engage Sri Lanka with fairness and pragmatism in reviewing the IMF bail out package, then Sri Lanka may avoid explicit leaning to any of the sides. A left-of- the-centre government may have no difficulty in maintaining a well-calibrated relations with China. Given past divergences, both India and JVP/ NPP will have their own share of challenges to extend hands of friendship. Communication among them started right after the Aragayala.
A socialism leaning Sri Lanka may help reduce overemphasis on geo-political issues in the neighbourhood, being manifested as competition between QUAD and the Belt and Road Initiative. Furthermore, given latent preference for regional cooperation in Nepal and Bangladesh at its rebirth, the three countries may collaborate to generate greater momentum for reinvigoration of the SAARC process. In sum, the Sri Lankan presidential election brings a fresh air of social justice and inclusive politics, burying economic mismanagement, kleptocracy and elitism where from the entire South Asia may take inspirations.
**Mohammad Sufiur Rahman, former Bangladesh high commissioner to Sri Lanka and senior research fellow, SIPG/North South University