Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake to be new Sri Lanka president, claims JVP

Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake will be the new president of economically traumatised Sri Lanka, his party declared on Sunday (September 22), after he finished on top of the first round of voting and seemed set to repeat the showing as second preference votes were counted.

The Janatha Vimukti Peramuan (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) said that Dissanayake, 55, had won after the first round vote count of Saturday’s fiercely-contested race for presidency and the second and third preferences will have no impact on the final outcome.

Second preference votes

"The Election Commission announced the counting on the second and third preferences as none of the candidates have secured over 50 per cent,” the media quoted senior party leader Vijitha Herath as saying.

Election officials said the difference between Dissanayake and his closest rival and main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa, was too wide to be affected by the second and third preference votes.

According to official figures, Dissanayake, who polled only 3 per cent of votes in the last presidential election in 2019, had won 15 of the 22 districts in Sri Lanka and bagged 5.6 million votes after the first round of voting. This amounted to 42.31 per cent of all the votes polled.

In contrast, Premadasa got 4.3 million votes or 32.76 per cent in the first round and incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had been hoping he would be re-elected, 2.2 million votes or 17.27 per cent of the votes.

Oath taking on Monday?

Daily Mirror, meanwhile, reported that once Dissanayake is formally declared the winner, he will take oath as the president at a simple ceremony at the presidential secretariat in Colombo on Monday morning.

Former tourism minister Harin Fernando said Wickremesinghe, who has been the president since 2022, had told his staff to clear out the president’s office for a successor to take over.

Early in the day, even while the vote count was on, key supporters of both Premadasa and Wickremesinghe congratulated Dissanayake on his impending victory after seeing the avalanches of postal votes in his favour.

Rivals congratulate Dissanayake

Outgoing foreign minister Ali Sabry was among the first to do so.

He said although he heavily campaigned for Wickremasinghe, “the people of Sri Lanka have made their decision, and I fully respect their mandate for Anura Kumara Dissanayake”.

“I extend my sincere congratulations to Dissanayake and his team. Leading a country is no easy task, and I genuinely hope that their leadership brings Sri Lanka the peace, prosperity and stability it so deeply deserves,” he said.

Tamil MP hails JVP leader

Premadasa backer and MP Harsha De Silva “It is now clear Dissanayake will be the new president. In the spirit of democracy and goodwill, I called and wished my friend the best in the arduous road ahead."

Tamil MP MA Sumanthiran, who had asked Tamils to vote for Premadasa, chipped in: "Congratulations (Dissanayake) for an impressive win, achieved without recourse to racial or religious chauvinism.”

The Saturday election was the most fiercely contested presidential battle since 1982 when the system was introduced. There were as many 39 candidates in the fray although one passed away before the balloting.

Son of a labourer

Both Dissanayake, son of a labourer father, and Premadasa campaigned on a platform promising a better future for Sri Lankans who have been traumatized by unprecedented hardships since the economy collapsed two years ago.

Dissanayake and his cadre-based JVP, one of the youngest Marxist outfits in Asia, promised to do away with the traditional political system and the deep-rooted corruption that has come to plague Sri Lanka.

A Dissanayake victory, when it is formally announced, will be a major turning point in Sri Lanka where his party the JVP unleashed two bloody insurrections in 1971 and 1988-89 to capture power but failed. The resultant bloodbath left tens of thousands of people dead on both sides.

Ever since it embraced parliamentary democracy in the 1990s, the JVP has moved away from the politics of the gun. But it remained a party on the fringe of national politics until two years ago.

The stunning collapse of the Sri Lankan economy in 2022 led to widespread shortages of even essential goods, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets.

The mass movement, known in Sinhalese as “aragalaya” (struggle), was led by the JVP and it led to the dramatic ouster of then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his flight out of Sri Lanka.

Members of the discredited ruling party quickly urged Wickremesinghe to take up the presidency for the rest of Rajapaksa’s term.