New leadership for Sri Lanka

The electoral victory of Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Sri Lanka signifies a major shift in the country's political landscape.

Dissanayake, leader of the National People's Power (NPP), has emerged victorious in the 2024 presidential election with over 42% of the vote, reflecting a deep-rooted concern with the traditional political establishment.

His victory on a populist, left-leaning platform played well amongst those most severely impacted by Sri Lanka's ongoing economic crisis.

Mr Dissanayake's victory gives Sri Lanka an opportunity to turn the page on the last few years, full of economic mismanagement, violence, political incompetence, and corruption.

Endemic and entrenched corruption has been front and centre in the NPP’s campaign, in a country where most citizens are forced to accept bribery as just a fact of life, and that bribing a public official is usually required to get most jobs done.

Officials and politicians who have been involved in corruption have in previous years been either given presidential pardons or simply fled the country. It’s a crime routinely ignored, and one that has had a marked impact on the country.

Corruption and greed were the flaws at the heart of the collapse of the Gotabaya government which led to Sri Lanka’s economic collapse.

Perhaps the most egregious example of the scale and impact corruption has had on the country was the administration led by Mahinda Rajapaksa between 2005 and 2015.

This government misappropriated vast amounts of foreign aid destined for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

But the examples are numerous, the sums involved sometimes eye-watering.

It’s a problem that every new administration campaigns on fixing, and while Sri Lanka has a  “Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption”, its powers have been curbed by powerful politicians and business interests to the point where the commission has not been able to act in an independent manner.

The new leader has of course vowed to finally address the corruption issue, as well as continue renegotiating the stringent conditions of the country’s IMF bailout, while reducing austerity measures that have disproportionately affected the working class in Sri Lanka.

Wages haven’t moved for some time, taxes remain high, and according to the World Bank the poverty rate has doubled in the last two years.

The new administration is expected to prioritise economic reform, but will be stepping well to the right of Dissanayake's radical Marxist roots. The current NPP was established in 2019, subsuming the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, a party originally formed in the mid-1960’s and involved in previous failed attempts to overthrow the Sri Lankan government and usher in a communist revolution.​

That hardline communist theme has now softened markedly, and Dissanayake’s new focus will be to steer Sri Lanka's economic recovery while balancing international relationships, especially with India and the IMF.

At the time of its economic collapse, Sri Lanka’s local and foreign debt totalled $US83 billion. The government says it has now restructured more than $17 billion of that debt, with the help of private bond holders as well as international creditors like France and China.  Sri Lanka has been paying around $6 billion in foreign debt every year, which amounts to just over 9% of GDP.

The new deal allows Sri Lanka to maintain debt payments at less than 4.5% of GDP between 2027 and 2032.

It’s still a very grim economic outlook, but with a new leader Sri Lankans are hoping the worst of the crisis is behind them, and perhaps more importantly they are looking for their political class to finally address the culture of corruption that has done so much damage to the country in recent years.

+Banner Image/ Wikimedia Commons+

-            Asia Media Centre