The leftist coalition of Sri Lanka’s new president has won the country’s parliamentary elections, giving him a clearer mandate to broaden welfare programs after years of austerity and economic crisis.
In final results announced on Friday, a day after the voting, the National People’s Power coalition of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake won 159 of 225 parliamentary seats, giving him a two-thirds majority in the legislature.
Although he was elected in September, his group had only three seats at the time. That prompted him to dissolve Parliament and hold elections.
Sri Lanka’s presidential election in September was its first since a crushing economic crisis in 2022. That year, the country defaulted on its external debt, leaving it unable to pay for crucial imports, including fuel and food. As Sri Lankans lined up for basic necessities, they also organized an uprising that led to the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The public blamed Mr. Rajapaksa and his family, long intertwined with Sri Lankan politics, for the economic crisis. They face allegations of corruption and human rights violations from activists, opposition parties and others.
Mr. Dissanayake, 55, presented himself as an alternative to the “politics as usual” culture, where power had been shared between a few ruling parties since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948.
His bloc rose to popularity in 2022, on a platform of tougher measures against nepotism and corruption that resonated with Sri Lankans. Mr. Dissanayake also favors broader welfare measures as people continue to struggle with the fallout of the 2022 crisis.
The winning coalition’s main competition was a party led by Sajith Premadasa. He and others, including former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, had raised concerns about the winning coalition’s lack of experience in politics, pointing out that the bloc never held parliamentary power before.
Mr. Wickremesinghe took the reins after Mr. Rajapaksa resigned in 2022, and he led Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and its external creditors. He secured $2.9 billion in financial assistance from the I.M.F. and debt restructuring agreements with the creditors.
The agreements, based on an I.M.F. analysis of Sri Lanka’s financing needs versus its ability to repay debt, were heavily criticized by Mr. Dissanayake in the election campaign. Highlighting the burden of austerity measures placed on the public, his party promised to renegotiate the arrangement when in power.
However, in an interview this week, Mr. Dissanayake said that the government would continue with the existing program because renegotiations could create fresh economic instability.
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