An upset in Sri Lanka propels an outsider into power
TWO YEARS have passed since Sri Lanka—crippled by covid-19, excessive borrowing and a series of policy blunders—defaulted on its debts. Inflation soared, the rupee plunged in value and fuel supplies ran out. Massive protests toppled the China-friendly president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who promptly fled to the Maldives. Things are no longer so terrible. Leaders have tamed inflation, secured a bail-out from the IMF and reached agreement with the country’s creditors on restructuring its debts.
Yet many Sri Lankans continue to demand fundamental change. It is not only austerity that angers them: they are fed up with the corruption and cronyism they spy among the country’s elites. All this helps explain the victory of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, an outsider from a party with Marxist and insurgent roots, in a presidential election on September 21st. He easily beat Sajith Premadasa, the son of a former president, in the second round of counting (Sri Lanka uses a preferential voting system). Just 17% of voters selected Ranil Wickremesinghe, the incumbent (who has been prime minister six times) as their first choice.
The result was Sri Lanka’s biggest electoral upset since it gained independence from Britain in 1948. It was also the latest in a series of political upheavals across South Asia that could tilt the balance of power there between China and India. Although Chinese influence has waned lately because of debt problems linked to infrastructure lending, India suffered a setback in August with the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina, a close ally, as prime minister of Bangladesh. A government collapse in Nepal in July brought a pro-China prime minister into office. And in the Maldives India has had to work hard to mend ties with a president who came to power last year on an “India out” platform.
Unlike most previous Sri Lankan leaders, Mr Dissanayake, also known as AKD, comes from humble roots. He is the son of a daily-wage labourer in rural Sri Lanka. He is the first president from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party (JVP), which led two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s before renouncing violence. It was close to China and fiercely hostile to Indian influence for many years. Though Mr Dissanayake has sat in parliament since 2000, his only prior experience in government is a year spent as the agriculture minister two decades ago. When he ran for president in 2019 he got just 3% of the vote.
This time he hooked voters in part by promising to renegotiate the terms of the IMF’s bail-out, and by pledging to curb corruption and recoup money that he alleges was pilfered from the country by previous leaders (particularly Mr Rajapaksa and his brother, Mahinda, who was president from 2005 to 2015). “We will work hard to rebuild the trust that people have lost in politics,” Mr Dissanayake said in his inauguration speech. “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.”
Mr Dissanayake’s mandate may be clear, but his ability to bring change is much less so. Mr Wickremesinghe has warned that attempting to renegotiate the IMF programme would delay its next tranche of lending, of around $350m. Others involved say there may be some scope to tweak tax rates and other parts of the government’s existing plan for meeting the IMF’s benchmarks. But such minor changes may not satisfy voters. More substantial revisions could also require renegotiation of the debt-restructuring deal with Sri Lanka’s creditors, the last part of which (with bondholders) was agreed to on September 19th.
Mr Dissanayake may well struggle to combat corruption, too. This will be especially difficult if his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition does not do well in the next parliamentary election, which will be held on November 14th. Under Sri Lanka’s constitution the president heads the government and appoints the prime minister, who must be a member of parliament (as must all ministers). The NPP currently has just three legislators, two of whom have so far joined Mr Dissanayake in an interim cabinet. A disappointing result could force Mr Dissanayake into a coalition government with more established outfits, which might not share his enthusiasm for fighting corruption.
A third challenge for Mr Dissanayake will be to maintain friendly relations with all the big foreign powers. The JVP has had ideological ties, and regular contact, with China’s Communist Party since the 1960s. For decades, opposing “Indian expansionism” was one of five core tenets of JVP training. That is a potential worry for India, which has re-established its clout on the island in the past two years following more than a decade in which China made major inroads through military assistance and infrastructure lending.
Lately the JVP has taken to advocating good relations with both of Asia’s giants. In February Mr Dissanayake visited India and met its foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. But Mr Dissanayake also received a high-level Chinese Communist Party delegation in Colombo in April. And he has since promised to cancel a controversial wind-power project being built by India’s Adani Group, which has close ties to India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. An early test could come with a decision on whether to extend a year-long moratorium on visits by foreign research vessels, imposed in January after Indian and American protests over several such Chinese visits.
Prolonging that moratorium may be the best choice, says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a think-tank in Colombo. He doubts Mr Dissanayake will do anything to threaten India’s security interests, even if China tries to exploit its ties to the JVP. The new president’s immediate priority is to prove to supporters and opponents that he and his party can govern the country competently, despite having almost no experience in power. But pressure to make good on his election promises may mount swiftly—both from ordinary Sri Lankans and from his own party’s leftist old guard.
Much will depend on how much sway the old guard still enjoys. Supporters say the JVP’s ideology has evolved, especially since a radical faction splintered off in 2011. But the JVP retains many traits of a Marxist-Leninist organisation. It has a politburo and central committee. Members call each other comrades. And recent visitors to its headquarters have been received in a room decorated with photographs of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Mr Dissanayake bills himself as a pragmatist and social democrat, rather than a radical. He may need to be all three to deliver the change that Sri Lanka needs. ■