Political battle lines are being drawn as Sri Lanka prepares to elect the country’s 10th executive president on September 21. The election secretariat will accept nominations on August 15 for one of the toughest political battles, the first to be held after the island’s economic collapse.
The government has played coy for long, employing delaying tactics despite elections being due. First, the local authorities’ elections due in 2023 were postponed citing lack of funds. Next, a fundamental rights petition that sought an order to halt a presidential election until the Supreme Court delivers its interpretation on the date of the presidential poll was dismissed by a five-member bench. The government recently introduced the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, viewed as a blatant attempt to postpone polls. Days ago, the government suffered a significant setback when court granted leave to proceed for nine FR petitions that challenged the appointment of an IGP without due process and issued an interim order restraining him from functioning as IGP.
There is a massive gulf between 2020 and the 2024 elections. Gotabaya Rajapaksa rode a wave of nationalistic hype to be elected in 2020. This enthusiasm was swiftly doused when the island was hit by an unprecedented financial crisis, the worst in post-independence. The crashing economy brought other concerns to the fore; food, fuel, electricity, essential drugs, fertiliser and livelihoods, quickly replacing the nationalistic fervour with daily needs.
Despite the increasing popularity of the left-leaning National Peoples’ Power (NPP), there’s little hype around the 2024 polls. People are expected to elect a president who can redeem the debt-strapped island from the damning state of bankruptcy, a leader with foresight and the capacity for course correction. The prospects before them don’t augur well.
At present, Sri Lanka is currently on survival mode, staying afloat thanks to a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This has allowed a false sense of normalcy to prevail and lull a section of the island’s urban middle class, following President Wickremesinghe’s success in securing a debt restructuring agreement. The crisis president was elected by the parliament to serve the remaining period of Rajapaksa’s term.
The main contenders at the forthcoming polls will be President Ranil Wickremesinghe, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who leads the NPP. A former army commander and a 2010 presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka and Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe too have joined the fray. Fonseka was a member of Premadasa’s Samagi Jan Balawegaya (SJB) and Rajapakshe until last week served on Wickremesinghe’s cabinet. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna that swept into power just four years ago found their political fortunes dwindling. In the face of economic hardships, people quickly turned against the Rajapaksas and brought them down, which increased ground support for the NPP.
Wickremesinghe is both credited and criticised at the same time for securing emergency support for Sri Lanka through effective negotiations with multilateral lenders and China, to buy Sri Lanka a breather. However, his neoliberal economic policies are trusted only by some but are critiqued for not containing a long-term solution. They fault the ‘fixing method’ for perpetuating debt, increased loss of livelihoods, crippling taxation driving brain drain, crippling austerity measures, increasing poverty and food inflation, while no plans are afoot to increase investments, exports and revolutionise the economy. Even those aligned with his economic policies are perplexed by his authoritarian streak, not only in cracking dissent but also the suffocating taxation.
Over time, NPP’s Anura Dissanayake has emerged as the island’s most popular political figure. The party’s popularity soared along with the 2022 public agitations that saw President Rajapaksa being forced to quit. There is also sizeable support for Premadasa and the SJB, making it a tripartite contest.
While Sri Lankan voters are known for electing people on the basis of class, ethnicity, religion, caste and old loyalties or rhetoric, it is evident there is voter fatigue. People are tired of voting the political elite in cycles to gain the same outcome. There is increasing support for a political change among many people, to break the two-party cycle. While some express their desire for stability and conservative choices, others look for a political overhaul and a course correction. Only the coming weeks will show how these two camps increase their support base.
But the choice before the voters this September is beyond a matter of popularity—or even ideology. It will have to rest in realism. This choice, despite the bleak options available, will decide the future of Sri Lanka. The political establishment too has been notified that people’s aspirations need to be aligned to secure a mandate. This makes it that much difficult for a single party to muster a simple majority.
Sri Lanka has experienced unprecedented hardships in the past two years. There had been political and economic turmoil. Do voters actually trust the ‘normalcy’ presented as the reality? Are they prepared to be hit by another financial shock soon, and to have this bubble burst, as it would? Are people ready to bear more taxes and food inflation as the painful IMF road is traversed?
The question will be, do people accept the current status quo? Or are Sri Lankans ready for a political overhaul and going through hard times (an easy prediction) for an economic, socio-political reset, which is what the NPP is offering? Do people know what formula may actually work for the island and make a genuine contribution towards economic building? If the choice is different and an overhaul, this would call for more sacrifices by the people. Is the nation ready? What will be the nation’s answer to debt servicing and pivoting economic growth, the twin monumental tasks before any future leader?
Thus, September 21 becomes not a simple matter of electing the next president. It will be more decisive than ever before and will have the power to alter the island’s trajectory. It will be tied to the direction Sri Lanka takes. it will require all the political wisdom voters can muster.
(Views are personal)
(dilrukshi@cir.lk)
(dilrukshihandunnetti@gmail.com)
Dilrukshi Handunnetti | Award-winning journalist and lawyer; founder and director of the Colombo-based Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR)