On Sept. 21, 17 million Sri Lankans will cast their vote to select the country’s next president. This is the first popular election since the country defaulted on its sovereign debt payments in 2022 and spiraled into its worst economic crisis since it gained independence in 1948.
Sri Lanka’s new leader will take the reins of a country still grappling with economic hardship. In 2022, lines for fuel, daily power cuts, severe inflation, and a shortage of drugs and essential goods led to mass protests that forced the resignations of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Since poverty levels doubled in 2022, more than 27 percent of Sri Lanka’s population remains below the poverty line, and more than 30 percent of households continue to face food insecurity.
Sri Lankans now have 38 presidential candidates to pick from, reflecting the country’s uncertain political environment. Many are unsure about which presidential aspirant, if any, can provide the leadership required to lift the country out of its economic predicament. Sri Lanka has a ranked-choice voting system. It’s possible that none of the top contenders will secure the 50 percent majority required to win office in the first round of vote counting and that voters’ second preferences will help determine the winner.
Still, some candidates can be ruled out from the list of likely winners, including Namal Rajapaksa, the son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is heir to the political dynasty that is widely blamed for Sri Lanka’s economic mismanagement and collapse. Though he is not a serious contender for president, his campaign is likely an attempt to rebuild the image of his family’s now-fragmented party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).
The top contenders are incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of a Marxist-Leninist communist party.
Wickremesinghe, who is running as an independent candidate after his United National Party (UNP) was split and weakened in 2020, markets himself as the only leader who can better the country’s economic situation. As evidenced by his choice of symbol—the gas cylinder—his campaign has relied on negative marketing by stoking fears about the return of gas shortages, fuel lines, and other hardships. Although both Dissanayake and Premadasa have served as government ministers before, Wickremesinghe’s campaign has emphasized his experience as a six-time prime minister and claims that only he can make the lives of Sri Lankans better.
However, while the country has seen some necessary economic progress under Wickremesinghe, including the creation of a fuel distribution system and an end to gas and food shortages, he remains unpopular for carrying out austerity measures in the wake of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout last year. Voters across the country are beginning to feel the burden of higher taxes, poor social protection mechanisms, and increased electricity and water tariffs.
Wickremesinghe’s legacy is also tainted by his use of state violence to suppress dissent. In 2022, the newly appointed president deployed the police and military to violently dismantle protest camps, despite announcements from protesters that they planned to leave. His government also arrested key protest leaders using Sri Lanka’s draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, which both Premadasa and Dissanayake have pledged to abolish if elected.
Under Wickremesinghe’s watch, an anti-drug and anti-organized crime operation called Yukthiya has raised concerns among human rights groups for carrying out arbitrary detentions and intimidating lawyers, according to human rights advocate and attorney Ambika Satkunanathan. Despite Wickremesinghe’s efforts to distance himself from the deeply unpopular Rajapaksas, some Sri Lankans may want a leader who can offer them a fresh start.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leftist leader, most closely reflects the system overhaul that Sri Lankan citizens once yearned for. In the 2020 general elections, the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance—which is led by Dissanayake’s Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—secured just three of 225 seats. Dissanayake, who is more charismatic and a better orator than his rivals, has seen his popularity surge in the wake of the economic crisis.
Dissanayake’s manifesto demonstrates that his policy approach—routinely mischaracterized by his rivals—departs from what one might expect of a Marxist-Leninist leader. Notably, he has not only agreed to work with the IMF, but he has also pledged to increase market competitiveness, transparency, and efficiency; to increase Sri Lanka’s share of foreign trade through export diversification; and to increase foreign direct investment.
Unlike some revolutionary leftist figures, Dissanayake does not appear to be either a protectionist or an isolationist. Still, he faces resistance from older voters, primarily because of the violent history of his party in the 1970s and 1980s, when JVP insurrections against the government led to the killing of thousands of people.
Meanwhile, Sajith Premadasa, Wickremesinghe’s former deputy who now leads the main opposition party, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), has taken a different strategy: putting forward a comparatively more articulate economics team. Though Premadasa is not a powerful orator himself, his team has prioritized its policy proposals and convincingly communicated the SJB’s economic vision in public debates, including the critical question of how to raise revenue to implement its policy plan.
Premadasa also starts with a more substantial voter base in this election: He earned 5.5 million votes in the 2019 presidential election, compared to Dissanayake, who earned around 419,000. Yet his affiliation with lawmakers who were once part of the Rajapaksa regime makes him less representative of the system change that voters may seek. Where Wickremesinghe represents complete stability and Dissanayake represents a sharp change, however, Premadasa may strike the right balance with voters.
Premadasa and Dissanayake have both promised to shift the burden of austerity away from poorer Sri Lankans. Both candidates have also repeated their pledge to abolish the executive presidency, which concentrates state power in the office of the president with minimal checks and balances, in a bid to promote transparency and accountability; this was a key demand of protesters in 2022.
While the executive presidency allows for decisive action, it also creates a culture of servility and space for incompetent decision-making. In 2021, for example, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was empowered to introduce a synthetic fertilizer ban overnight that would devastate agricultural yields. Of the three main contenders in this election, Wickremesinghe is considered least likely to abolish the executive presidency—which was introduced by his relative and former president, J. R. Jayewardene, in 1978.
Dissanayake and Premadasa have both also pledged to establish a public prosecutor’s office and promised to take swift legal action against the perpetrators of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks that killed more than 300 people. Critically, both Premadasa and Dissanayake have much stronger anti-corruption pledges in their manifestos, including proposing plans or legislation for recovering stolen public assets. Wickremesinghe and his close political affiliates are still tainted by old and new corruption scandals alike.
There is a silver lining to this campaign season despite Sri Lanka’s economic woes. Regardless of how the election unfolds, broader discourse in Sri Lanka has been far more positive than in previous years. During the 2019 election, anti-minority rhetoric and ultranationalism were a large part of political campaigns. And too often in Sri Lanka’s history, presidential candidates have tried to secure victory by depicting minorities as the public enemy and appealing to the Sinhala Buddhist majority. The notable absence of such ethnic outbidding in this election cycle may be a result of candidates trying to secure minority votes.
In a bid to attract undecided voters, the main presidential candidates have made highly publicized visits to the country’s Northern Province, which is dominated by Sri Lankan Tamils, who make up 11 percent of the country’s total population. All three candidates have promised to devolve more powers to regional governments, though Dissanayake has done so in less precise terms. Wickremesinghe has apologized for the government’s policy of forced cremations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that denied Muslims their religious rights; Premadasa has actively opposed this anti-minority policy.
Finally, economic policy discourse in the country has improved dramatically since the 2022 crisis, with think tanks, media, and civil society organizations reporting on and educating citizens about the economy as well as on politics. As a result, there is greater pressure on all the candidates to justify their economic policies—whether they propose tax cuts, increases in public-sector salaries, or particular visions for economic growth. Two years since economic collapse, Sri Lankan citizens are headed to the polls better informed and actively debating the hows and whys of the country’s economic recovery and growth.
The post As Sri Lanka Heads to the Polls, Economy Takes Center Stage appeared first on Foreign Policy.
