National People’s Power coalition’s Presidential candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, is a magician. Nothing else can explain a person, who secured a mere 418,533 votes (3.2 per cent) in the 2019 Presidential election, being the winner in this edition of the Presidential contest. He did win a seat in the parliamentary election held in 2020, from Colombo district.
His popularity can have an oblique explanation: there was a Covid outbreak across the world which affected middle and low- income countries very badly, and there was very poor management of resources at the level of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after 2019. The combination led to the economic downturn, which pushed an unprecedented number of Sri Lankan people back into poverty. Dissanayake was not anywhere near the power centre and it was easy for the people to look up to a politician who spoke their lingo, understood their problems and empathised with them.
Even during the Aragalaya [protests] in 2022, against the gross mismanagement of the economy, Dissanayake was not a key face. In fact, though there was suspicion that the party that he leads, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, had a role, Dissanayake was more comfortable allowing the “organic” protest to gather pace and direction on its own, and did not seek to take ownership.
But Dissanayake’s success lies in the fact that between July 2022 and September 2024, he managed to convince the people that he was the outsider and the candidate for “drastic change”—similar to the “drain the swamp” campaign that won Donald Trump his first presidency.
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The 55-year-old is careful about his image, and has taken a leaf out of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi too: His mother, who was supported by a woman on either side to walk, arrived at the booth in an autorickshaw today (popularly called three-wheeler or tuk-tuk in Sri Lanka). The son, who is now a prominent party leader, arrived in a luxury car, much like the NSG-protected Modi. The United National Party, which supports President Ranil Wickremesinghe, mocked him in a post on the social media platform X and said in Sinhala that “no one will be fooled by drama like this.”
The fact remains that Dissanayake is no outsider. He was first elected to parliament in 2001 and stayed in the House for more than two decades and continues to be an MP. In this period, he has had some responsibilities, including a short stint (just over a year) as Agriculture Minister between February 2004 and June 2005 when Chandrika Kumaratunga was President.
Does India need to worry?
No Tamil political party in Sri Lanka can support Dissanayake or the politics he stands for. The reason that his stint in the Chandrika cabinet was short-lived was because he opposed the Chandrika formula of working with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the post-tsunami period in 2005 (The Tigers controlled a major part of the North and East of Sri Lanka at that time). This act is looked upon as his reluctance to help the Tamils who were also badly affected by the tsunami at that time, when a massive reconstruction was called for.
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The even more problematic part of Dissanayake is the political vision set out by the JVP. The party claims that it is communist but excludes Tamils and Muslims from almost all realms of activity. Compared to Dissanayake and his JVP, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, appear to be a “lite” version of Sinhala chauvinism.
The bad news does not stop there. Dissanayake made his name during the anti-India protests of 1987, opposing the India-Sri Lanka accord, which actually remains the only document on which peace has been negotiated so far. There are several flaws in the solution that was suggested and adopted for the Tamil question, but if Dissanayake is elected, there can be no progress on the Tamil quest for a political solution.
Dissanayake has toned down his anti-India rhetoric significantly and has even visited New Delhi at India’s invitation. But China has been pushing his case during this election, with both the Tamils and the Muslims in Sri Lanka, according to two sources that this correspondent spoke to.
“India can do business with Dissanayake,” said an Indian official. “After all, at the end of the day, no one can wish us away,” he added. It appears ‘winging it’ will have a new meaning for Indians dealing with a Sinhala-speaking President.
