After a deep crisis, Sri Lanka really has a choice this time

You’d almost think it would be an easy task: there are no less than 38 names on the ballot for Sri Lanka’s presidential election starting on Saturday. The enthusiasm may be explained by the fact that these are the first real elections since the predominantly Buddhist country went through a deep crisis two years ago. The winner must get the island nation back on its feet. And: eliminate corruption now.

In 2022, then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to resign after months of protests against his mismanagement and the subsequent deep economic crisis the country experienced. Sri Lankans were also fed up with the corruption and nepotism that had become rampant under Rajapaksa. With citizens queuing for fuel and hospitals running short of medicine, Gotabaya, his brother Mahindra and other family members had been delegating political duties to each other for years.

“Now people really want change, not the same faces in politics,” says Nira Wickramasinghe, a historian and professor of modern South Asian studies at Leiden University. “Many voters are hoping for a formal follow-up to the protests through the polling booth. The 2022 protests were unique, there is no history of social protest in Sri Lanka. A kind of popular politics seems to have emerged that we have not had before.”

After strong protests, the parliament in the capital, Colombo, elected an interim successor as president: Ranil Wickremesinghe. He had to avoid the deepest financial problems as quickly as possible. He has partially succeeded: on paper, the island nation is in better shape than two years ago. Then there was a dramatic loss of revenue in the tourism sector due to the pandemic, high energy costs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and high inflation. This has now dropped sharply, from 69% to around 5%. This year, economic growth is predicted to be around 2 percent. Still, many Sri Lankans face financial problems, especially if they live or work outside the busy tourist destinations.

His strict cuts have made Wickremesinghe unpopular, but his background also matters. Like his predecessor, he is seen as part of the political elite. He comes from the highest socio-economic class and attended elite boys’ schools in Colombo.

The candidate of the demonstrators

In a lively field, the current president is expecting a tough fight, and national media polls do not yet indicate a clear winner. After the split in his own party, Wickremesinghe’s opposition is led by a former party friend: Sajith Premadasa. He also wants to be president. Premadasa promises to clean up Sri Lankan politics and is seen as promising.

But there is a third candidate, an outsider, who seems to be getting the support of people who joined the anti-Rajapaksa protests: leftist candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake. He is the leader of National People’s Power, a left-wing alliance born out of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party founded in the 1960s. JVP has never been in power before. It moderated the Marxist tone and expanded the party with the help of leftist academics and activists.

Many voters hope for formal monitoring of the protests through the voting booth

This coalition, the NPP, wants to fight corruption. Dissanayake promises exemptions to the heaviest taxes. This 55-year-old candidate is also made popular by the fact that he is not an elite and is not in the government. He also wants to intervene severely: in his opinion, both the Rajapaksa family and current President Wickremesinghe should be prosecuted. That sounds good to many Sri Lankans who are frustrated by the Rajapakse’s lack of punishment.

Meanwhile, the hated family dynasty has also used the election to put its youngest member on the ballot. Namal, 38, served as Minister of Sports and Youth in the ousted government of his uncle Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His chances are slim: there is still too much hatred directed at his family. Alan Keenan, a Sri Lanka expert at the International Crisis Group, believes that with Namali’s involvement, the family is trying to restore its important role in a political party (the People’s Front of Sri Lanka). It may make a return possible at a later stage.

Power, not ideology

It is strategies like these that illustrate the focus on power that has characterized Sri Lankan politics in recent decades. “The parties were ideologically colourless, they were only concerned with power and client relationships,” says historian Wickramasinghe by phone. On a recent visit to Sri Lanka, he found that voters don’t want the same faces again. – The voters now mainly want change.

He also believes that the nuclear power plant has been the most successful in dealing with the protest movement. “That way they can get a lot of votes.”

This time, the financial plans of the presidential candidates weigh heavily in the voting choice, as a recent population survey by the Law & Society Trust research center showed. This applies to voters from the various groups that make up the Sri Lankan population – the majority predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese, Tamils ​​and Muslims. It is striking that the tensions between these groups, which are causing civil war and violence in the country, remain virtually unaddressed in this campaign.

But all parties of the three leaders played a role in Sri Lanka’s bloody past.

Successive cycles of violence continue to create an unresolved mess in Sri Lankan politics and society. A long series of independent commissions and reconciliation projects have not brought enough transparency or resolution to victims and their families, civil society activists say. Politicians avoid each other for fear of having to answer for past war crimes. Tamils ​​still feel left behind.

Historian Wickramasinghe points out that the resolution of Sri Lanka’s bloody past is of no interest to the public right now. “Parties talk a lot about poverty, even less about minority rights or recognition.” These underlying issues will undoubtedly have to be “dealt with at some point.” But in this election, Sri Lankans want to see other issues resolved first.

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