Who is the new president of Sri Lanka Anura Kumara Dissanayake?

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Marxist president-elect Anura Kumara Dissanayake hails from a party behind two deadly uprisings, counts Che Guevara as one of his heroes and will now lead a country slowly emerging from economic ruin.

The 55-year-old won 42.3 percent of the vote in Saturday’s (September 21) election, in which voters punished establishment parties for the 2022 economic crisis and hardships caused by a stringent IMF bailout.

This is a huge change for a man who won just 3 percent of the vote in the last presidential election in 2019.

His closest rival this time, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, won 32.8 percent of the vote. Incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe came in third with 17 percent of the vote.

Who is Anura Kumara Dissanayake and what is the future of his leadership?

POLITICAL BEGINNINGS

Dissanayake, popularly known by his initials AKD, was born on November 24, 1968, the son of a labourer and had a science education.

He became involved in left-wing politics as a student, around the time of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Peace Accord. The accord was part of the Sri Lankan government’s plan to end the civil war by handing political power to the Tamil minority under a deal brokered by neighboring India, which would send a peacekeeping force.

However, the agreement failed to achieve its intended objective and led to a bloody uprising in Sri Lanka led by the Marxist political party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), also known as the People’s Liberation Front.

At the time, Dissanayake, a member of the majority Sinhalese community, was an active student leader in the JVP. The rebellion was suppressed within about two years.

Dissanayake described how the teacher gave him shelter for more than a month to save him from government-backed death squads that were killing JVP activists by setting their bodies on fire in public using car tires.

A large number of people have gone missing, with unofficial estimates at 60,000 victims of the JVP armed conflicts. Some have still not been found.

Rise Through the Ranks

Over the years, Dissanayake rose through the ranks in the JVP.

According to his CV, he took over the party leadership in 2014 and shortly thereafter made a public declaration that he would “never again” take up arms.

His party’s Marxist roots are evident in his office in the capital, where portraits of prominent communist figures hang, including Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Friedrich Engels and Fidel Castro.

Outside, a red flag with a hammer and sickle flies on a mast.

Dissanayake was married with two children. He spent most of his political career outside the mainstream.

But he realised that the JVP’s political fortunes depended on broadening its base and appeal. According to The Hindu news portal, he formed the National People’s Power alliance, with more than two dozen small political groups, professionals, academics and activists.

As reported by The Hindu, this marked the beginning of a third force beyond the two traditional political camps in Sri Lanka.

In 2019, he ran for president, finishing third with 3 percent of the vote.