Dissanayake, a Marxist, takes office as president of Sri Lanka

Anura Kumara Dissanayake joined a Marxist-Leninist group in the late 1980s with the goal of assassinating Sri Lanka’s leaders and overthrowing the government through an armed rebellion. He triumphed peacefully in the presidential election on Sunday.

Dissanayake, 55, has shifted his Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party away from its violent history and towards the mainstream of Sri Lankan politics. Nonetheless, in a country that has always rotated the leadership among a few dynastic political families, his ascension to power has sparked outrage among the country’s 22 million inhabitants.

“The elites are besides themselves at the thought that this outsider might actually be leading this country,” said Harini Amarasuriya, a politician and coalition member for Dissanayake.

“He has been in parliament for 24 years and a political activist for about 30 years, so you can’t discount that.”

Sri Lanka’s Political Unrest

In 2022, street demonstrators overthrew then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose financial mismanagement lead to the country’s bankruptcy and caused shortages of basic supplies including as food and petrol. Parliament then nominated Ranil Wickremesinghe to oversee Sri Lanka’s talks with the International Monetary Fund, which agreed to a $3 billion bailout on the condition that the country clean up its finances.

Ordinary individuals ended up paying for it through higher taxes and utility bills. On Sunday, they elected Marxist leader Dissanayake, a political outsider, in an attempt to alleviate some of that anguish.

Dissanayake is unwilling to jeopardise the IMF agreement, demonstrating how far his party has come since the days of revolt. He does, however, seek to renegotiate some loan terms in order to reduce the burden on the poor. It is also unclear whether Dissanayake will follow through on the previous administration’s deal with bondholders to restructure approximately $12.6 billion in bonds.

Economic Challenges

The uncertainty has weighed on investor mood. On Monday, the first trading day following Saturday’s election, Sri Lanka’s dollar bonds due in 2027 and 2029 plummeted the most in more than two years. The rupee edged up against the dollar to 303.85, surging alongside stocks as investors hoped the new leader will keep to the IMF program.

During his inaugural speech in Colombo on Monday, Dissanayake stated that Sri Lanka “needs international support.”

“Whatever the power divisions, we expect to act in the most advantageous way,” he told the audience. “We shouldn’t be an isolated country. “We must move forward in the world in unity and cooperation.”

Political Evolution

Dissanayake, often known by his initials AKD, has a stronger public mandate than any other Sri Lankan leader in recent years. He emerged during the campaign as the standard bearer for the 2022 protest movement’s goals, skilfully channelling a wave of residual anger by promising to eradicate corruption and lead with good government.

Although his party is nominally communist, with a hammer-and-sickle logo on its website, Dissanayake has indicated that he will strike a balance between major powers — the region’s main strategic competitors, India and China, both of which have significant investments in Sri Lanka. In his manifesto, he promised to re-examine international trade agreements in order to boost exports, and his supporters have advocated for closer examination of investment deals with China and other countries to avoid future debt traps.

During a high-profile visit to India in February, Dissanayake met with both Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Two months later, a Chinese Communist Party delegation came to Dissanayake’s office to talk politics.

“When you look at his history, he has had a more nationalist stance—not pro-China or pro-India,” said Chulanee Attanayake, a researcher and sessional lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology and expert on Sri Lankan foreign policy.

“Someone might assume that because they are historically a Marxist-Leninist party they will align closely with China because of their ideological similarity, but they have come a long way from being that,” according to her. “In this election, they presented themselves more like a centre-left party.”

Foreign Policy Considerations

A significant foreign-policy test could be whether Dissanayake implements the previous government’s decision to relax a prohibition on foreign research vessels landing in its seas.

Sri Lanka imposed the moratorium at the beginning of the year after the US and India expressed concerns about visits by Chinese research vessels, but later stated that it would withdraw the prohibition because it did not want to unfairly penalise China.

Dissanayake’s triumph demonstrates how profoundly the crisis years have altered Sri Lanka’s political environment. Dissanayake ran for president in 2019 on a campaign attacking the country’s political establishment, telling a local journalist that the two leading candidates were in fact “one camp that is responsible for the socio-economic malaise that has gripped the country for the past 71 years in the post-independence era.”

“This camp resorted to the most despicable kind of acts in politics,” he reportedly remarked. “We joined the fray to represent the other political camp.” That year, his candidature received only 3% of the vote. This year, he defeated his second-place challenger by more than 1.2 million votes.

Dissanayake was involved in student politics with the JVP during the 1987-89 rebellion against the government, which was ruthlessly crushed by Sri Lankan paramilitary forces. He became the party’s head in 2014 and has subsequently included civil society figures and academics to appeal to a broader range of people.

The party has also moved away from its anti-capitalist roots, briefly joining coalition governments.

Nonetheless, the JVP leadership lacks administrative experience: the National People’s Power coalition that it heads has only three members in the 225-seat parliament.

While Sri Lankans were dissatisfied with the IMF agreement, the economy showed signs of improvement under Wickremesinghe. Inflation has decreased to low single-digit levels, down from about 70%, borrowing rates have dropped, growth has increased, and debt restructuring talks have made progress.

Still, Dissanayake stated on Monday that he is inheriting a “challenging country.” In a speech following his inauguration, the new president stated, “There is a need for a good political culture that the people expect.” “We are prepared to commit to that.”

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