Saman Gunadasa & Deepal Jayasekera
The election of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake as Sri Lanka’s new executive president, announced yesterday, is a reflection of the profound economic, social and political crisis impacting the country since its debt default in 2022 and the subsequent mass uprising that forced former President Gotabhaya Rajapakse to flee the island and resign.
The magnitude of the political shift is indicated by the fact that the JVP and its electoral front, the National People’s Power (NPP), has never before held the presidency and has only ever been a junior partner in government. In the 2019 presidential election, Dissanayake won just 3 percent of the vote as compared to 42 percent in the election on Saturday.
The fact that counting had to go to second preferences to decide the result underscores the disintegration of the Colombo political establishment in recent years under huge economic and political pressures. The two parties that have ruled Sri Lanka since formal independence in 1948—the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)—no longer exist in their past form.
The previous president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was anti-democratically installed by parliament to replace Rajapakse, heads the rump UNP which split in 2020 with the breakaway forming the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB). Wickremesinghe received just 17 percent of vote on Saturday, while SJB candidate and leader Sajith Premadasa gained 33 percent.
Wickremesinghe, who has been instrumental in imposing savage austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has been ruling with the support of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)—the major component of a split in the SLFP. The SLPP vote on Saturday was divided—some supporting Wickremesinghe while others backed its candidate Namal Rajapakse who received just 2.6 percent of the vote.
The dramatic increase in the vote for the JVP/NPP is a product of two inter-related processes—the seething hostility and anger of broad layers of the population over the economic and social crisis that continues to worsen on the one hand; and significant support for the JVP/NPP in sections of the ruling class as the means for preventing any revival of the 2022 uprising from taking a revolutionary road.
The JVP and Dissanayake were able to exploit the mass opposition to the political establishment long dominated by figures and families such as Wickremesinghe, the Rajapakses and Premadasas, by posturing as a radical alternative and making false promises to alleviate the suffering of the masses. Its election rhetoric denounced the greed and corruption of previous governments in order to cover up the root cause of the plight facing millions in the global crisis of capitalism.
While often referred to as “Marxist” or “leftist” in the media, the JVP has long ago jettisoned its socialistic pretensions and rhetoric. Formed in 1966 on the basis of an admixture of Maoism, Castroism and Sinhala populism, the JVP led two disastrous uprisings of rural Sinhala youth that resulted in the slaughter of tens of thousands. It has since abandoned its weapons for seats in parliament and a place in the political establishment, but undoubtedly retains a certain radical aura.
Dissanayake’s promises to rebuild the economy and uplift the living conditions of the masses through the elimination of corruption and privileges for the ruling elites are based on a lie. The JVP/NPP has insisted that it will impose the IMF’s austerity agenda in return for a $US3 billion bailout that will mean a fire-sale of state-owned enterprises, the destruction of half a million public sector jobs, deep inroads into essential services, such as health and education, and continuing inflation as prices subsidies are eliminated.
Dissanayake has declared that he will renegotiate the terms of the loan, but the IMF has already made abundantly clear that there is no room for alterations. In fact, the IMF mission will return to Colombo in the next fortnight. Last month, mission head Peter Breuer bluntly declared that “Sri Lanka’s knife-edged recovery [is] at a critical juncture” and “timely implementation of all program commitments are critical… [to] put the economy on a firm footing.”
While promising social improvement to working people, the JVP has been reassuring the ruling class that it will act in their interests. Addressing a meeting of industrialists and businessmen convened by the NPP’s Business Forum on September 4, Dissanayake pledged the full protection of the profit interests of local and foreign investors under his government and assured them that an NPP/JVP government would not repudiate the IMF program.
In another sign that the JVP has the support of sections of the ruling class, outgoing President Wickremesinghe was quick to congratulate Dissanayake, declaring he was “confident” the politician, whom he referred to as “my president,” would “steer Sri Lanka on a path of continued growth and stability.” While Wickremesinghe warned during the campaign that an NPP-led government would crash the economy, his ringing endorsement of Dissanayake is an acknowledgment that a JVP government will quickly abandon any election pledges that conflict with the demands of international finance capital.
At the same time, having long ago abandoned its “anti-imperialist” demagogy, the JVP/NPP will continue the integration of the island into the US-led confrontation and war drive against China. Dissanayake has met with US ambassador Julie Chung several times, including in the midst of the 2022 uprising when she made a point of visiting the JVP offices. Obviously reassured that US interests would be supported, she declared that the JVP was “a significant party” that resonated with the public.
In another sign of the JVP’s foreign policy alignment, Dissanayake was also congratulated by right-wing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who emphasised Sri Lanka’s strategic significance and declared that he looked forward to strengthening cooperation with the island. In the lead-up to the election, Dissanayake visited India, a key strategic partner in the US war drive against China, to reassure New Delhi that the JVP was on board.
In his address to the nation on Sunday evening, Dissanayake appealed for national unity in a bid to obscure the JVP’s pro-business and pro-imperialist orientation and to delegitimise any opposition to its pro-capitalist policies. “Everyone—those who voted and didn’t vote for me—we have a responsibility to take this country forward,” he declared.
Significantly, the island’s Tamil and Muslim minorities do not regard the JVP/NPP with anything but deep suspicion and outright hostility. The JVP is steeped in Sinhala chauvinism and was a trenchant supporter of the devastating 26-year communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It defended the military’s war crimes, including the slaughter of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final months of the war in 2009. Dissanayake received only 10 percent of the vote or less in the Tamil-majority North and East of the island.
Moreover, the widespread support for the JVP/NPP in other areas of the island will quickly evaporate as masses of working people realise that Dissanayake’s promises were a pack of lies when living conditions worsen. The Socialist Equality Party has warned that the JVP/NPP, like Wickremesinghe, will resort to police-state measures to suppress the inevitable renewal of strikes and protests. The NPP has been building collectives of retired military and police officers in preparation for repressive moves under its government.
Workers and youth should recall that in the late 1980s the JVP backed its reactionary nationalist campaign against the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord with the assassination of hundreds of political opponents, trade unionists and workers. It opposed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord on the basis of denouncing “Indian imperialism,” which it has now dropped. However, Dissanayake will not hesitate to resort to anti-Tamil chauvinism, which is deeply embedded in the JVP’s political DNA, to divide and derail any mass movement against his government’s policies.
As he prepares to take office, Dissanayake indicated that he would dissolve parliament shortly and hold parliamentary elections as he wanted a government with a “mandate.” Currently, the JVP/NPP holds just three seats in the 225-seat parliament and Dissanayake clearly wants an early election to strengthen his position prior to ruthlessly implementing the IMF austerity agenda.
The election of Dissanayake demonstrates that the island is in a state of immense political flux. None of the issues that were raised in the 2022 uprising have been resolved, nor can they be resolved under a JVP-led government. Indeed the popular anger has welled up time and again in strikes and protests against the IMF austerity policies. The key role of the JVP and its trade unions in limiting and suppressing the opposition is undoubtedly one reason why the ruling class has turned to Dissanayake.
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