Sri Lanka veers left, elects Marxist

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake takes the oath of office

(Image credit: Presidency of Sri Lanka / Anadolu via Getty Images)

published 23 September 2024

What happened

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of a Marxist party and leftist coalition, was sworn in as Sri Lanka's president Monday after being declared election winner Sunday. Voters elected Dissanayake, 55, on Saturday, choosing an outsider who promised to fight corruption and raise the standard of living after a 2022 economic collapse. He beat President Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa in a ranked-choice system that returned no majority winner in the first count.

Who said what

The election was a "referendum on Wickremesinghe," who led the "heavily indebted nation's fragile economic recovery" after taking over in the wake of the 2022 collapse, Reuters said. The austerity measures mandated by a $3 billion IMF deal he negotiated were unpopular. "With much love and respect for this beloved nation, I hand over its future to the new president," Wickremesinghe said in a concession statement.

Dissanayake's "pro–working class and anti–political elite" campaign made him popular among young voters, The Associated Press said. He promised not to walk away from the IMF deal but said he would try to renegotiate it to make the austerity less painful. "We believe that we can turn this country around, we can build a stable government," he said to reporters. "For me this is not a position, it is a responsibility."

What next?

The new president's first challenge will be to steady the economy amid "anxieties felt by business and financial groups about his Marxist and revolutionary background," political analyst Jehan Perera said to the AP.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.