Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared Sri Lanka’s next President
- In Reports
- 12:44 PM, Sep 23, 2024
- Myind Staff
Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been declared as Sri Lanka’s next President on Sunday. The 55-year-old leader of the People’s Liberation Front won the presidency with 42.31 percent of the vote in Saturday’s election, according to the election commission. Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa took second place with 32.76 percent, while outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe secured a distant third with 17.27 percent. Wickremesinghe, who took office at the peak of the 2022 economic collapse and imposed tough austerity policies as part of an IMF bailout, was elected by parliamentary vote in July 2022 to complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s five-year term.
Dissanayake, who leads the National People’s Power (NPP) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), has positioned himself as a voice for change, appealing to voters disillusioned by traditional political structures. His party emerged from the JVP, a Marxist-oriented group historically focused on social justice and anti-corruption.
Born in Galewela, a small village in Central Province, on November 24, 1968, Dissanayake moved to Kekirawa at the age of four. He became the first student from his school to qualify for university. He rose to prominence as a student leader in the 1990s, advocating for communism in the island nation. In 1997, he was appointed national organiser of the Socialist Youth Organisation, the youth wing of the JVP, and by 1998, he had joined the JVP’s decision-making body, the politburo.
Dissanayake first contested the parliamentary elections in 2004 from the Kurunegala district, where he was re-elected. As part of a coalition government, he became a Cabinet minister in President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's government, though he resigned a year later. In January 2014, he ascended to JVP leadership, replacing Somawansa Amarasinghe. He contested the 2015 general elections from the Colombo district and won, later serving as the Chief Opposition Whip in Parliament. Dissanayake first ran for president in 2019 but garnered only about 3% of the vote.
The NPP proposed to break away from what many perceived as “a cycle of corruption and mismanagement” that has plagued Sri Lankan politics for decades, attracting support from those seeking “system change.” In his campaign speeches, Dissanayake emphasised the importance of accountability among politicians, asserting that previous leaders failed to address the root causes of the economic crisis.
The NPP’s manifesto also highlighted the need for substantial reforms in Sri Lanka’s education system, public health services, and housing shortages. A pre-election opinion survey indicated that Dissanayake was leading in voting preferences at 36%, followed by Premadasa and Wickremesinghe.
The Sri Lankan election system allows voters to select three candidates on their ballots in order of preference. If no candidate secures a majority, the top two candidates will be retained, and the ballots of the eliminated candidates will be checked for preferences given to either of the top two, with those votes added to their respective tallies. The candidate with the highest number of votes after this process is declared the winner.
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