Lankan mandate

TWO years after an economic meltdown sparked an uprising in Sri Lanka, Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake has bested Sajith Premadasa in the presidential election. Incumbent President and six-time Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe finished a distant third, underlining the voters’ resolve to herald a new beginning in the beleaguered island nation. Dissanayake, the candidate of the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, rode to victory on the back of his anti-corruption and pro-poor agenda. His promise of slashing taxes clicked with people who are reeling under poverty or finding it hard to keep pace with the high cost of living.

Involved in two armed uprisings against the Lankan government (1971 and 1987-89), Dissanayake’s Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has been active in mainstream politics in recent decades. It remains to be seen if the NPP will give him and his party the freedom to do something revolutionary on the economic front. A deal with the International Monetary Fund has helped Sri Lanka’s economy make a tentative recovery, with inflation falling to 0.5 per cent from an alarming high of 70 per cent. The major challenges for Dissanayake are to enable the country to repay its debt, regain investors’ confidence and pull one-fourth of its population out of poverty. He can’t afford to let down the masses, whose anger and discontent had fuelled the 2022 protests that led to the ignominious ouster of then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Those nightmarish scenes of food and fuel shortages are fresh in the people’s minds.

Playing its cards well, the Modi government had hosted Dissanayake in February, notwithstanding the anti-India rhetoric the JVP was once infamous for. Going by Delhi’s diplomatic success in making pro-China Maldives President Muizzu see reason, India will hope to sway Dissanayake in case he starts cosying up to Beijing. A balancing act by the new President will stand his country in good stead geopolitically as well as economically.