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Sri Lankan President Anurakumar Dissanayake has strengthened his grip on the country’s politics by winning the parliamentary elections after the presidential election. Dissanayake was originally a Marxist thinker.
At one time, his party, Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), also held Singh in the grip of hegemonic politics. But he is one of the few politicians who has changed his mind after realizing that Sri Lankans have gained nothing from the bloodthirsty ethnic violence. The political alliance formed by his party won more than two-thirds of the seats in the latest elections. Because his party also won some seats in the Tamil-dominated Jaffna region in the north of Sri Lanka. It was because of overcoming the political barrier of this ethnic divide that he got such a resounding success. In a sense, this is a lesson learned by the parties involved in racist politics – both Sinhala and Tamil.
A look at the seats won in the new Parliament of Sri Lanka gives an idea of the direction in which the politics of this country is leaning. The National People’s Power Aghadi under Janata Vimukti Peramuna won 160 seats. Samagi Jan Balawegaya, the opposition party in the outgoing parliament, won 40 seats. The largest Tamil party, Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi, won six seats. Outgoing president Ranil Wickremesinghe’s New Democratic Front got just four seats and former president Mahinda Rajapakse’s party just two.
Rajapakse’s party had a majority in the outgoing Parliament. Mahinda Rajapakse did not benefit so much from the wave of popularity in the elections held after the death of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Prabhakaran. The Rajapaksa did not have the same majority as the JVP in the 225-member parliament at the time. The JVP, made up of representatives of intellectuals, civil society and trade unions, has been trusted by the people of Sri Lanka. Due to Kovid-19 and the wrong economic policies of the Rajapaksa government, the essential commodities like fuel, food and medicines started to suffer.
An economic disaster hit Sri Lanka, and anger turned against the opulent, unscrupulous Rajapaksa. People walked directly to the presidential palace. Dissanayake’s overwhelming support from the Lankan electorate in successive elections is therefore due to financial reasons rather than ethnic or any other reason. The people of Sri Lanka want economic stability. This allowed a Sinhala-Buddhist party like the JVP to win three seats in the Tamil-majority district of Jaffna. This is because the JVP’s racist identity has been lost sight of by Tamil voters. Sri Lanka’s current sources of finance are a generous $4 billion loan from India two years ago, along with loans from the International Monetary Fund and high-interest loans from China over the past few years. If you look at it like this, JVP’s ideological commitment to the Communist Party of China. But Dissanayake is aware that India cannot be ignored under any circumstances.
He has promised that Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim will move together. Sri Lanka has a future only if it shows stability and harmony on both the economic and ethnic fronts. India also extended a hand of friendship to Dissanayake, realizing the changing mood of public opinion in Sri Lanka. When Dissanayake was elected president in September, the Indian High Commissioner visited him before the Chinese ambassador. The Indian Embassy also showed the same readiness after the election. With a friendly government in Bangladesh toppled and untrustworthy leaders in Nepal and Maldives in power, it would be beneficial for India to develop ties with an important country like Sri Lanka.
The JVP alliance wants to change the presidential-parliamentary democratic system of governance in Sri Lanka. They want to reduce the powers of the President. If that happens, a President with unlimited and unrestricted powers will no longer be found in that country. For Sri Lanka it will be a truly ‘people’s’ government.
