NPP banks on a lean Cabinet to keep the optics right, and deliver

President Dissanayake keeps crucial portfolios while inducting fresh faces; the Opposition nominates defeated candidates through national list.

Harini Amarasuriya (left) receiving a document from Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (right) after being sworn in as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister and Minister of Education during the swearing-in ceremony of the new Cabinet in Colombo, on November 18, 2024. | Photo Credit: Sri Lanka President’s Media Division/AFP

The new 22-member Sri Lankan Cabinet of the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) coalition was sworn in on November 18 following its victory in the parliamentary election. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake retained the key ministries of Defence, Finance, Planning, and Digital Economy. Unlike previous Cabinets, the NPP has kept the Cabinet lean and got the optics right.

Social media influencers, some politicians, and civil society leaders commended the formation of a relatively small Cabinet—the smallest in the past few decades. Soon after Dissanayake won the presidential election in September 2024, the NPP appointed only its members to the Cabinet—three in all—and the President dissolved parliament to call early elections.

The Prime Minister, Harini Amarasuriya, who won with a large majority, has been given charge of Education, including Higher Education and Vocational Education. A decade ago, she was one of the main faces of the Federation of University Teachers’ Association’s demand to hike the budgetary allocation for education to 6 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Vijitha Herath, who polled the largest number of second preference votes in this election and rewrote records, will be the Foreign Minister. He will also be in charge of the Tourism portfolio, which is a key foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka. The President’s close associate of many years, Ananda Wijepala, will be the new Minister for Public Security, a post which can be used to stifle internal dissent in the country.

Notable nominees

The JVP’s Central Committee member and former MP Ramalingam Chandrasekar, nominated as a national list MP, has been made Minister for Fisheries, a post earlier held by Douglas Devananda of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party for long. This is the only ministerial post given to a representative from the Tamil-dominated Northern Province in all recent governments. Devananda, who first entered parliament in 1994, lost the 2024 election.

Former Foreign Minister M.U.M. Ali Sabry said that the Cabinet inspired hope. “With a resounding mandate, President Dissanayake and NPP have been given an unprecedented opportunity to execute their vision for Sri Lanka,” he said, and added that the core advantage lies in their cohesive team comprising “like-minded individuals who have stood together through both challenges and triumphs”.

The Cabinet, which has professionals, activists, and career politicians, aimed at “marking a transformative chapter for the nation,” the President’s Media Division said. Of the NPP’s 159 MPs, 145 are first-timers. Soon after the party’s victory on November 15, President Dissanayake said: “Thank you to all who voted for a renaissance.” However, the NPP’s addition of two candidates who lost the election to its national list—Upali Samarasinghe and Abubakar Adambawa—has come in for criticism from some quarters.

The new Sri Lankan parliament has many firsts: for the first time, about 20 women have been elected on the basis of their campaign. None of them are mothers, sisters, daughters, or widows of well-known male politicians. The NPP also made history by nominating a visually handicapped person, Sugath Wasantha De Silva, to parliament. The presence of two women MPs from among the hill country Tamils—Krishnan Kaleychelvi from Nuwara Eliya and Ambika Samuel from Badulla—is another major achievement.

Opposition faces challenges

Even as transformation is the new mantra in the island nation, it appears that the opposition has not received the memo. The New Democratic Front, headed by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, has nominated Ravi Karunanayake for the party’s national list to the parliament, evoking widespread condemnation. In an earlier government, Karunanayake had to resign as Minister over alleged corruption in the “bond scam”.

The Sarvajana Balaya (SB), which has “creation of a happy nation” as its motto, has nominated the media tycoon Dilith Jayaweera, who lost his first election from the Gampaha district, as national list MP. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, which was the largest party in the previous parliament, has nominated its leader Namal Rajapaksa to the parliament from its national list. The party was routed in this election and could nominate only one member. The only Rajapaksa who contested this election was routed, and another relative of the Rajapaksas also lost. Namal, who contested the presidential election this year, finished a poor fourth.

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya leader, Sajith Premadasa, has so far lost two presidential elections and two parliamentary elections as head of the alliance. When he formed the alliance in 2020 after breaking away from the United National Party, his main complaint was that the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had consistently refused to give up the leadership even after losing successive elections. Although Premadasa is not unaware of this fact, there have been no formal demand for him to step down from the party leadership.

The Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) too went down the same path of nominating a person who lost the election and nominated P. Sathiyalingam, who has been unable to win his seat twice now. The seat was reportedly offered first to M.A. Sumanthiran, the ITAK candidate who lost from Jaffna. But he declined stating that he did not want to use the back door to enter parliament after the people had rejected him.