Colombo: Dissanayake's coalition gets more than two-thirds of parliament

The National People's Power alliance won 159 seats out of 225. The Marxist-inspired leader, chosen in September's presidential election after decades of family dynasties in power, promised to seek ‘alternative means’ to support the nation's finances. The International Monetary Fund had demanded austerity measures in exchange for a bailout loan.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's leftist coalition won Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections, taking 159 out of 225 seats with 63% of the vote. The National People's Power (NPP) thus overtook the opposition alliance called Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), led by Sajith Premadasa, son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa, which won 40 seats.

Many former MPs either did not run again or preferred to stand as independents, fragmenting the opposition. The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, representing the Tamil ethnic minority, won seven seats, while the New Democratic Front and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (the party of the Rajapaksa family in power until 2022) won three and two seats respectively.

‘We believe this is a crucial election that will mark a turning point in Sri Lanka,’ Dissanayake himself had said at the polling stations yesterday. ‘Thank you to everyone who voted for a revival,’ he wrote on X today in Sinhala, Tamil and English, the three languages spoken in Sri Lanka. In the outgoing assembly, Dissanayake's Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Party (JVP), Marxist-inspired and engaged in an armed struggle in the 1970s and 1980s, had only three seats.

Dissanayake became president in September after promising to ease the austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to get out of the economic crisis. In 2022, Sri Lanka had declared bankruptcy and the ensuing street protests had forced the resignation of then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, part of one of the families that had dominated the country's political scene for years. In his place was appointed economist Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was responsible for signing the agreements with the IMF calling for increased revenue. Thus, measures were passed that increased bills and income taxes, which were unpopular from the start.

Dissanayake, elected with 42% of the vote in September, had then dissolved parliament because he no longer considered it ‘in line with what the people want’. During the presidential campaign he had declared that he would fight corruption and seek ‘alternative means’ to support the nation's finances, in an attempt to impose less burden on the poor. While agreeing with the need to restore the economy and support the people in need, he had criticised the agreements with the IMF.

In the last four years, the percentage of people below the poverty line has risen to 25.9% and the World Bank's growth forecast is only 2.2% for 2024. Several polls had shown that the economy remains the first concern for voters.

‘Now that the president and the new leaders have got the votes to lead the parliament, they have to keep the trust of the people,’ an elderly businessman from Colombo, the capital, told AsiaNews. ‘We are very happy for our children, because they will benefit from this new government, but only if it leads the country with one goal, which is ‘for the people’,’ said Vinothen Rasaiaha, a 45-year-old Tamil.

A press release by the Christian Women's Movement similarly emphasises that those who played a role in the NPP's victory must now ensure that the government runs the country without betraying the trust of the people, especially the Tamil communities, who are settled in the north and east of the country, and who have suffered long from three decades of civil war.