Sri Lankan Leftist Candidate Dissanayake Wins Presidential Election

• 2nd-round victory indicates widespread rejection of old political elite amid economic crisis

Marxist leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake has won Sri Lanka’s presidential election, in what is seen as a widespread rejection of the old political elite blamed for the country’s current economic woes.

For the first time in Sri Lanka’s history, the election went into a run-off on Sunday after no candidate managed to get more than 50% of the votes. However, after second-choice ballots were counted, Dissanayake was declared the winner in the evening. “This victory belongs to all of us,” he wrote on X.

Dissanayake, 55, defeated the incumbent, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who became president in 2022 after Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to resign and flee the country amid a popular uprising.

The win by Dissanayake, the leader of the hardcore leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which is a member of the broader National People Power (NPP) coalition, was seen by many to be a watershed moment for his party. It is the first time it has sat in the presidential office.

The NPP had won just 3% of the votes in the last presidential election in 2019 while JVP holds just three seats in parliament. For many, the JVP had long been considered an unelectable radical fringe group due to past involvement in violent insurrections and targeted assassinations that left thousands dead in the 1980s.

However, since 2022 Sri Lanka has gone through a period of prolonged economic and political tumult that has left many disenchanted with the parties and leaders that have dominated politics for the past two decades. The island nation found itself in a serious economic crisis, with barely any money left in foreign reserves to import essential goods such as medicines or pay back international debts.

As the country declared itself virtually bankrupt, it provoked a political uprising against Rajapaksa and his powerful family dynasty who were accused of rampant corruption and misappropriation of state assets. An uprising on the streets, known as the aragalaya [struggle] eventually led to protesters taking over Rajapaksa’s presidential palace – where they swam in his pool and worked out in his gym – forcing his resignation and temporary exile from the country.

Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister, was appointed in his place and tasked with getting the country’s economy back on track.

He was credited with negotiating a $3bn loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) but as poverty rose to 25% over the past two years, he became deeply unpopular for austerity policies that were seen to hit the poorest. – With The Guardian report