A McMarxist in Colombo

THE VICTORY OF Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the newly elected Sri Lankan President, symbolises the rejection of the traditional elite politics that dominat­ed the island nation for over seven decades. Until Dissanayake’s win, he was largely identified as a Marxist- Leninist who lived on the fringes of mainstream politics as the leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). His party’s colourful processions in Colombo and elsewhere often saw cadres flaunting larger-than-life images of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Rohana Wijeweera, the iconic founder of JVP, who led insurrections against the federal government in the 1970s and the ’80s until his assassination in 1989.

Dissanayake, 55, is largely the product of JVP’s parliamenta­ry phase that it embarked on in the 1990s under the leadership of Somawansa Amarasinghe. It is the route that JVP, which was formed in 1965, took following the decimation of its top brass. Currently, his party is the coalition leader of the National People’s Power (NPP), which comprises more than 20 organisa­tions. Shortly after his win, Dissanayake dissolved parliament on September 24 and called for a parliamentary election on November 14 to consolidate power in the 225-member parlia­ment. Meanwhile, he appointed Delhi University alumnus Harini Amarasuriya, a 54-year-old academic and activist, as the country’s new prime minister, making her the first female head of state in 24 years.

Colombo-based political commentator, essayist and poet Malinda Seneviratne says Dissanayake’s electoral gains are remarkable, but not unexpected. He tells Open, “It’s a strong anti-establishment vote, a rejection of both political configurations that dominated Sri Lanka over the past 76 years. It seems that quite a big seg­ment of those who voted for [former president] Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019 voted for Dissanayake. The JVP/ NPP is on a foreign turf, so that’s a challenge. The ‘system’ is rigid and re­silient—navigating or transforming existing structures, political culture and work ethic will be tough but not impossible.”

For a leader of a political formation seen as anti-Tamil and anti-India, getting rid of such perceptions may be far more chal­lenging than expected for Dissanayake. So are the difficulties of meeting promises made to the people who had voted for change following an unprecedented economic and political crisis over the past few years. His advantage at the moment—of battering former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and others who were part of the so-called elite politics and who were blamed for the crises the country has plunged into— could become an adversity if the people don’t see results soon enough. In a post-victory interview with the Monocle magazine, Dissanayake pointed out the problems. “Both the main opposition and the ruling party follow the same neoliberal economic model. Today, sadly, we are a bankrupt nation. We have an external debt of €34 billion, poverty has increased and the price of essential goods has skyrocketed. Our priority is to save the country from this economic crisis.”

That is, of course, easier said than done.

As regards foreign policy, he said in the same interview, “There are many power camps within a multipolar system. We won’t be a competitor in that geopolitical fight, nor will we be aligned with any party. We don’t want to be sandwiched, especially between China and India. Both countries are valued friends and, under an NPP government, we expect them to become close partners.”

Rajesh Venugopal, associate pro­fessor, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), who has penned papers and a book on Sri Lanka, feels Dissanayake’s election will be uncomfortable for India because JVP has historically been very anti-India. “It is going to be viewed as yet another regional setback for India following the April elections in Maldives and Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in Bangladesh in August. JVP has in the past opposed Indian influence, and also Indian investments in Sri Lanka, and there are a number of controversies which may gain traction.” But he feels that since there is also a lot of “behind-the-scenes” diplomacy between JVP and the Indian government, it is not clear how this relationship will shape up.

In response to an opinion shared by certain Indian com­mentators that Dissanayake will take Sri Lanka closer to China, Venugopal notes, “But that ship has already sailed—Sri Lanka has already tilted significantly towards China in the past 20 years to counter Indian pressure on the Tamil issue and there are already a number of large Chinese investments. I’m not sure that Dissanayake will take it much further, or even that there is much further that it can go.”

JVP and its larger coalition NPP have historically been a protest party, and it was at the forefront of the Aragalaya movement in 2022. “It is that popular anger at the old-guard politicians and the ‘system’ from two years ago that has carried Dissanayake to power. You could almost say it’s a historical accident, resulting from the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid lockdown, and from the catastrophic economic mismanagement of the former president in his short period in power,” Venugopal says.

Dwelling on the challenges for Dissanayake, Venugopal believes that the immediate challenge is that neither he nor his party have any experience in government. The next big step will be to win a parliamentary majority. “Beyond that, the big challenges are to address the economic crisis, renegotiate with foreign debtors, and address long-standing governance issues,” says he, adding, “JVP [and its coalition vehicle NPP] has a reputa­tion as a ‘clean’ party and has vowed to root out corruption.” But going by similar experiences worldwide, many political outfits that come to power on anti-corruption agendas end up getting sucked into the system and getting corrupted themselves.

“One of the big issues that Dissanayake will have to address is to win the confidence of the minorities since most of his sup­port is from the majority Sinhalese community—and as you point out, the Tamil minority feels that JVP has been histori­cally anti-Tamil,” the London-based scholar says. Dissanayake has also promised to abolish the executive presidency, which has been viewed as a vehicle for authoritarianism, and for that purpose, the president will have to amend the constitution for which he needs a two-thirds majority in parliament.

“JVP has had a complicated historical arc from a radical Marxist party dedicated to the revolutionary capture of power in the 1970s-80s, to being a mainstream parliamentary leftwing party since the mid-1990s. They have also gone through phases of being very Sinhala-nationalist, such as during the 2000-2010 period, but have since tried to change that image. Their trans­formation is significant even in the past 10 years,” points out the LSE scholar who has tracked the entity for a long time.

Dissanayake will also have to work hard at restoring the people’s trust in politicians whom they had lately begun to abhor. He told reporters after taking over as president that he was not a magician. The Sri Lankan leader, who has admitted that he looks up to the Argentine-born revolutionary Che Guevara, also hastened to add that he was not totally opposed to privatisation.

Perhaps we will see a pragmatic politician at the helm in a neighbouring country, a socialist who understands only too well the distinction between theory and practice.

Anura Kumara DissanayakeMcMarxistNational People’s PowerSajith PremadasaSri Lankan President