Sri Lanka: Is it time for change?

Sri Lanka’s first presidential election after the protests of 2022 promises to be a pointer to what the people want: status quo or a drastic change.

A protest by JVP supporters against the Electricity Act, in Colombo on May 15. The JVP, a major opposition party, has been leading protests against soaring prices, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, its leader, is the favourite to become President in the upcoming election. | Photo Credit: ISHARA S.KODIKARA/AFP

Ending uncertainty over the date of the Sri Lankan presidential election, the Election Commission of Sri Lanka on May 9 announced that the election would be held on a day between September 17 and October 16. The parliamentary election, also due, will follow the presidential election.

The election will be the first after the mass protests of 2022 that sent the then Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, home, forced the then President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, into hiding abroad, and gave a new lease of life to a down-and-out politician, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is currently the President.

In the election, there is one clear front-runner: Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Opinion polls put him on top of the pile of contenders even though the economic policies he has articulated so far can best be described as quirky. Wickremesinghe’s party, the United National Party (UNP), which underwent a partial revival after his ascent to the top job, is possibly the only party that can take on the JVP.

Sajith Premadasa, who broke away from the UNP and founded the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, has remained a dark horse since the last election. Other hopefuls, including the Rajapaksas and former army chief Sarath Fonseka, will be forced to pick one of these contenders in return for protection or position after the election.

Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, Member of Parliament, said: “This is geopolitically a very important election in the Indian Ocean region because Sri Lanka influences what happens in the region.” Rasamanickam, one of the few politicians who has wide acceptance across the political spectrum in the island nation, added: “It is too early to make predictions about the election, but it is certainly one of the most important elections in the country’s history.”

Amantha Perera, a Sri Lankan journalist, said: “What happened in 2022 [the Aragalaya protests] was a complete shift from the way Sri Lankans engage with politics. The public civic uprising, largely non-violent, wanted to change the system and the leadership. What has happened since then is that we have gone back to the same personalities.” According to him, the upcoming election will decide if the status quo will continue or if the people will effect a drastic change.

Election outcomes

Oddly, in Sri Lanka, unlike in most other South Asian nations, continuity, rather than change, in terms of governance has been the distinguishing outcome of many national elections. In the past few decades, for instance, the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the fall from grace of the Rajapaksas, and even the rise of Wickremesinghe were not directly related to elections. In the case of the LTTE, if the citizens of the Tamil-majority Northern Province had voted in 2005, Wickremesinghe would have won. The LTTE banned them from participating in the election. In that election, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) nominee Mahinda Rajapaksa won, getting 50.29 per cent of the votes. Wickremesinghe secured 48.43 per cent. The LTTE was wiped out in 2009, which was a watershed event in Sri Lankan history.

File photo: Demonstrators during the anti-government protest inside the office building of Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister in Colombo on July 13, 2022. | Photo Credit: ARUN SANKAR/AFP

In 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was voted to power after the bomb blasts of April the same year. But in less than three years, a people’s uprising, largely peaceful, threw him out. Wickremesinghe lost in the parliamentary election in 2020 but still entered the parliament as the UNP nominee; his party had secured enough votes to nominate one person to the parliament.

In 2022, a series of circumstances combined to propel him to the Prime Minister’s office, after Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned as Prime Minister following public protests. Wickremesinghe was later appointed President by parliament after the then President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country.

Mahinda’s fall from the pedestal was even more stunning. Until 2009, the Sri Lankan state was battling the LTTE. When the conflict ended with the comprehensive victory of the state forces in May 2009, there was euphoria and elation in the Sinhalese heartland, in the south of Sri Lanka, and Mahinda became a rock star overnight.

Soon after the war, Mahinda decided to seek a fresh term much before his tenure was scheduled to end. The people voted him back with an overwhelming majority in 2010.

However, in just under five years, Mahinda was voted out of power, but he staged a comeback in 2019. This time, though, the limits set by the Constitution ensured that Mahinda could not contest. Hence, Mahinda’s brother Gotabaya contested and won the 2019 presidential election. In 2022, Gotabaya had to flee the country after people filled the streets demanding accountability following massive economic hardship.

No slogan to attract voters

Now, however, the ground has shifted, and politicians across the spectrum are unable to find a viable slogan to attract the people. Wickremesinghe is projecting himself as a person who lifted the country out of the abyss it had fallen into, and has done quite a lot of plain-speaking.

Targeting the stock market cartel, he said on May 15: “Some say parliament will be dissolved soon. When they say this, the stock market crashes the next day. Then they buy stocks. When the government says they are not doing it, it [market] rises again. Then they sell and make profit.” He has made it a habit to use various platforms, including parliament, to engage in plainspeak; but it is unclear how much of this will propel people to vote for him. People want solutions, not more speeches.

Wickremesinghe is the most erudite and possibly the biggest intellectual-politician in South Asia, but he lacks charisma and, more importantly, the ability to embrace all kinds of people across the spectrum. Unlike Mahinda, he has zero people-connect. However, efforts are on to reposition him as the person Sri Lanka needs at this point.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe speaking during the a FAO session, in Colombo on February 20. | Photo Credit: ERANGA JAYAWARDENA/AP

Kanchana Ratwatte, former Chairman of Bank Of Ceylon, Sri Lanka’s largest public sector bank, said that the country managed to come out of its worst crisis since independence when democracy was under threat.

He said: “The peaceful transition of the presidency was finally achieved adhering to the laid out provisions of the rule book. Subsequent decisions which were implemented were all possible due to the rock-solid parliamentary majority that the SLPP [Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna] secured in 2020, when they won 144 seats. Compared to the period that Greece took to move out of the crisis, it is evident that a strong parliament that was handed over to the incumbent President was the cornerstone that resulted in stability being restored within a few months.”

He added: “Whatever the outcome of the next election is, there is going to be a hung parliament that will result in a not-so-favourable outlook in the medium term. Any coalition that is formed will have diverse opinions diametrically opposed and that will entail catastrophic consequences.”

Hardship on the ground

On the ground, there is not much change in the lives of the lay public. The hardship has eased a bit but daily wagers and the middle class are still struggling hard to make ends meet simply because wages are static while inflation remains high. The drop in inflation is from a hyperinflation scenario, and hence, even though government statistics correctly point out that inflation has fallen, this fall is from an already crushingly high level.

There are reports of people in villages opting to disconnect their power connections because electricity rates have shot up. To add to the people’s anger, the government has signed an agreement to buy power from a company owned by Gautam Adani at a much higher price than it is purchasing now.

“A majority of people face extreme hardship,” said Dilrukshi Handunnetti, a lawyer and director of the Centre for Investigative Reporting. “Unemployment is high, tax evasion needs to be plugged... a lot of qualified professionals are emigrating.”

She added: “Politicians owe it to the people of this country to present workable solutions to the economic and other problems. More than anything else, manifestos of political parties should be semi-legal documents. We need to have the right to ask them questions on their promises after the election.”