In political tsunami, NPP wins majority in Sri Lankan parliament

Sri Lanka’s ruling NPP led by Marxist President Anura Dissanayake on Friday (November 15) won a majority in parliament and could even sweep two-thirds of all seats in general elections that crushed traditional political parties that had dominated politics in the island nation for seven decades.

Election officials said the National People’s Power (NPP), a Left-of-Centre coalition led by Dissanayake’s leftist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), had grabbed 137 of the 225 seats in parliament, with the vote count that began on Thursday about to end.

A section of the media projected that the NPP could end up with 159 seats, making it the first political party since a new constitution came into being in 1978 to breach the two-third majority mark on its own.

Also read: Voting over, Dissanayake expects mandate for strong parliament

Battered Opposition

The main Opposition SJB party of Sajith Premadasa, who finished second in the presidential race of September that catapulted Dissanayake to power, had won 35 seats and may finish with 42 seats.

The NPP needed 113 seats to get a simple majority and it will have to win 151 seats for a two-third sweep. In the outgoing parliament, the NPP had just three seats.

The election battered the National Democratic Front of former president Ranil Wickremesinghe and the once powerful SLPP of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, which netted just three and two seats respectively.

NPP and Tamils

The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi, popularly known as the Federal Party, had bagged six seats in Sri Lanka’s Tamil areas and could become the third largest group in parliament although way behind the first two.

Also read: NPP creates history, finishes on top in Tamil heartland Jaffna

While the strongest performance for the NPP came in areas majorly populated by the majority Sinhalese community, it also did surprisingly well in Tamil areas in the island’s north and east, which was the scene of a quarter century long separatist war that ended in 2009.

The NPP also outclassed everyone in the country’s central tea plantation areas which are heavily populated by Tamil workers of Indian origin.

Former ministers fall aside

Election officials said the NPP had bagged 61 per cent of all votes so far, leaving 17 per cent to the main opposition SJB. All others had a vote share in single digits.

Such was the NPP sweep nationally that almost all former cabinet ministers lost heavily, unable to face the appeal of President Dissanayake, 55, who promised voters an administration that would crush corruption, go for badly needed national reconciliation and boost a battered economy.

Among the prominent losers were Daham Sirisena, son of former president Maithripala Sirisena, and Nipuna Ranawaka, a relative of former president Rajapaksa who got the highest votes in the 2020 elections.

Gentle warning for Anura

“The NPP is on the threshold of a two-third majority in parliament,” said Saliya Peiris, a former president of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. He too noted that the NPP had made major gains in the Tamil areas, a sign that voters wanted the new government to unite diverse communities.

But Peiris warned that the huge win would come with several challenges for the new president, who among other things has promised to scrap the executive presidency and restore supremacy to parliament.

The NPP picked up seats all across the country, indicating that voters upset with corruption and the economy mess had again turned towards Dissanayake, who won the presidential election beating two powerful rivals.

2022 tumult and later

Sri Lankans voted on Thursday to elect a new parliament in the first general elections since the 2022 economic collapse that triggered an unprecedented mass revolt and forced then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.

Wickremesinghe succeeded him with the backing of then MPs.

Although Wickremesinghe managed to rescue Sri Lanka from further ruin, the economic policies he embraced after a bailout from the International Monetary Fund became hugely popular. The discontent first catapulted Dissanayake to the presidency and now looks like delivering a huge majority in parliament to the veteran Marxist.