PRESIDENT Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s (pic) leftist coalition won a landslide victory in snap legislative elections, as voters repudiated establishment parties blamed for triggering an economic crisis.
Dissanayake, a self-avowed Marxist, swept September presidential elections on a promise to combat graft and recover stolen assets, two years after a slow-motion financial crash imposed widespread hardships on the island nation.
His decision to immediately call polls and secure parliamentary backing for his agenda was vindicated yesterday, with his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition taking at least 123 seats in the 225-member assembly and on track to win many more.
The coalition had a monumental 62% of the vote among the more than three-quarters of ballots counted so far, while opposition leader Sajith Premadasa’s party was well behind with only 18%.
“People voted to get rid of corruption and a corrupt system,” said IT professional Chanaka Rajapaksha, who is an NPP supporter.
In a sign of the magnitude of support for Dissanayake, his party won the most votes in the northern district of Jaffna, dominated by the island’s minority Tamil community, for the first time since independence from Britain in 1948.
Dissanayake, the 55-year-old son of a labourer, said he expected “a strong majority” in parliament to press ahead with his platform after casting his ballot in Thursday’s poll.
“We believe this is a crucial election that will mark a turning point in Sri Lanka,” he said. “At this election, the NPP expects a mandate for a very strong majority in parliament.”
Police said the nine-hour voting period passed without any incidents of violence, unlike most ballots of recent years, but three election workers, including a police constable, died due to illness while on duty.
Dissanayake had been an MP for nearly 25 years and was briefly an agriculture minister but his NPP coalition held just three seats in the outgoing assembly.
He stormed to the presidency after successfully distancing himself from establishment politicians blamed for steering the country to its 2022 economic crisis.
The financial crash was the worst in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka’s history as an independent nation, sparking months-long shortages of food, fuel and essential medicines. — AFP
