The Left turn in Sri Lanka

The election of Anura Kumar Dissanayake, the leader of Janata Vimukti Perumuna (People’s Liberation Front), an outfit with Marxist leanings, as the ninth President of Sri Lanka, marks a new chapter in the island nation’s politics. In a way, the ascent of the JVP, which led two violent insurrections in 1971 and during 1987-89, and its eclipsing of the three mainstream parties that have monopolised power in Colombo, completes a political cycle that started with the massive civic unrest in 2022, which forced the then president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to quit office and flee the country. The civic protests (Aragalaya) were unprecedented in their scale of mobilisation and remarkable for the way they articulated popular disaffection with the political establishment and the economic collapse that the Rajapaksas, once celebrated as heroes for their role in defeating the LTTE and ending the war in the Tamil-majority areas, presided over. Dissanayake was a prominent voice during Aragalaya, which helped the JVP to offer itself as an alternative. That the JVP never held office in Colombo — Dissanayake, though, was a minister in the Chandrika Kumaratunge government some years ago when JVP was her ally — has helped the coalition it led to win the mandate in an election defined by voter antipathy towards the establishment.

Dissanayake will need to be pragmatic in his policies to reconcile the compulsions of managing a country, which is yet to recover from the economic crisis of 2022 and is dependent on a $2.9 billion IMF bailout, with popular expectations for less taxes and more welfare. He has promised to renegotiate the IMF package with its stringent austerity measures which was a major reason for the anti-incumbency against the outgoing president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who, after replacing Rajapaksa, had to seek help from the international community to tide over the currency crisis and stabilise the economy and the country. Dissanayake may have to soften his party’s populist pitch and explore a middle path to ensure that the economy doesn’t slide into chaos once again.

In office, the JVP will need to shed its exclusivist Sinhala nationalism and embrace a more inclusive vision to address the concerns of minorities, especially Tamils. Its perceived anti-India slant has more to do with its warped notion of nationalism rather than any ideological affinity with Beijing. Delhi has been supportive of Colombo in its worst times and the two countries became even closer after the 2022 unrest. President Dissanayake, who met senior Indian officials in Delhi in February, has spoken about strengthening bilateral ties. That’s in the interest of both nations.

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