Marxist
lawmaker Anura Kumara Dissanayake won Sri Lanka’s presidential election, the
Election Commission announced Sunday, after voters rejected the old political
guard that has been widely accused of pushing the South Asian nation into
economic ruin.
Dissanayake,
whose pro-working class and anti-political elite campaigning made him popular
among youth, secured victory over opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and
incumbent liberal President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over the country two
years ago after its economy hit bottom.
Dissanayake
received 5,740,179 votes, followed by Premadasa with 4,530,902, Election
Commission data showed.
The
election held Saturday was crucial as the country seeks to recover from the
worst economic crisis in its history and the resulting political upheaval.
“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 belongs to all of us,”
Dissanayake said in a post on X.
Outgoing
President Wickremesinghe in a video statement congratulated Dissanayake and
said he hoped he will carry forward the economic recovery efforts successfully.
The election was a virtual referendum on Wickremesinghe’s leadership, including
restructuring Sri Lanka’s debt under an International Monetary Fund bailout
after it defaulted in 2022.
Dissanayake,
55, had said he would renegotiate the IMF deal to make austerity measures more
bearable. Wickremesinghe had warned that any move to alter the basics of the
agreement could delay the release of a fourth tranche of nearly $3 billion that
is crucial to maintaining stability.
“I
successfully completed the responsibility that history put on my shoulders. I
was able to rescue my motherland from bankruptcy within short period of two
years,” Wickremesinghe said.
Under
Wickremesinghe, inflation has dropped and foreign reserves and the local
currency have strengthened. A 2% economic growth is predicted this year after a
7% contraction in 2022. But Sri Lankans are still struggling with high taxes
and living costs.
“Throughout
our lives, we have undergone a lot of hardships and our children are also
suffering now. We need to bring an end to this misery,” said Ranuka Priyanthi,
58-year-old who voted for Dissanayake. She said she expects him to rebuild the
country that has been ruined by economic mismanagement and corruption.
Dissanayake’s
immediate challenge would be to steady the economy “in the face of anxieties
felt by business and financial groups about his Marxist and revolutionary
background,” said political analyst Jehan Perera.
He
said Dissanayake represented the spirit of the 2022 uprising during which angry
Sri Lankans ousted then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and called for a “system
change” and “new faces in politics.”
The
U.S. State Department congratulated Dissanayake on his victory. “This election
is a testament to the strength of Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions and the
commitment of its citizens to shaping their future through peaceful and democratic
means,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The
outcome was a strong showing for Dissanayake, who won just over 3% of votes in
a previous presidential election in 2019.
His
National People’s Power coalition is led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, or
People’s Liberation Front, a Marxist party that waged two unsuccessful armed
insurrections in 1970s and 1980s to capture power through socialist revolution.
After its defeat, the JVP entered democratic politics in 1994 and mostly played
a key role in the opposition. However, they have supported several presidents
and been part of governments briefly.
The
NPP grouping also includes academics, civil society movements, artists, lawyers
and students.
Dissanayake
was first elected to Parliament in 2000 and briefly held the portfolio of
agriculture and irrigation minister under then-President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
He ran for president for the first time in 2019 and lost to Rajapaksa, who was
ousted over the economic crisis two years later.
The
government announced Thursday that it passed the final hurdle in debt
restructuring by reaching an agreement in principle with private bond holders.
At the time of its default, Sri Lanka’s local and foreign debt totaled $83
billion. The government says it has now restructured more than $17 billion.
The
crisis resulted largely from excessive borrowing on projects that did not
generate revenue. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s
insistence on using scarce foreign reserves to prop up the currency, the rupee,
contributed to the economy’s free fall.