(Colombo) Left-wing coalition leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka is on course to win the presidential election in Sri Lanka, where people are eager to turn the page on the austerity drive that followed the 2022 financial crisis, according to provisional results.
The 55-year-old former Marxist is currently leading with more than 58% of the vote, according to the 250,000 votes cast on just over 700,000 postal ballots.
Officials involved in the conduct of elections are allowed to mail their ballots and their vote is considered a highly representative sample of the entire electorate.
In the past, candidates who received more than 50% of the postal votes have always won elections.
There was no immediate comment from outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 75, but one of his main allies, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry, acknowledged Mr Dissanayaka’s victory.
“After a long and arduous campaign, the results of the election are now clear. Although I campaigned strongly for President Ranil Wickremasinghe, the people of Sri Lanka have made their decision and I fully respect the mandate they have given to Anura Kumara Dissanayaka,” Ali Sabry said on the social network X.
PHOTO DINUKA LIYANAWATTE, REUTERS
Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe
Election officials said Mr Dissanayaka was leading in the rest of the country, making his victory almost certain, and a major rival candidate, Amal Rajapaksa, also conceded his victory.
“Anura Kumara Dissanayaka has won the election,” Milinda Rajapaksha, a campaign adviser to Mr Rajapaksa, said on Facebook.
Curfew
As leader of the Marxist-inspired People’s Liberation Front (JVP), Anura Kumara Dissanayaka campaigned against the “corrupt” elites responsible for the chaos of 2022.
The JVP, which launched two deadly uprisings in the early 1970s and late 1980s that left more than 80,000 people dead, has renounced armed struggle and largely converted to a market economy. It won less than 4% of the vote in the last legislative elections in August 2020.
“After the victory, there should be no clashes or violence,” Mr Dissanayaka said on Saturday, confident of his election. “Our country needs a new political culture,” he said.
If a candidate passes the 50% mark, he or she is elected president. If not, the electoral commission conducts a new count and records the voters’ second or third preferences to decide between the contenders.
PHOTO ISHARA S. KODIKARA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
An election official carries a sealed ballot box to a counting centre at the end of voting in Sri Lanka’s presidential election, in Colombo, September 21, 2024.
The vote was marked by a very high turnout (around 76%) of voters, tired of the brutal austerity cure imposed on the country after the unprecedented financial crisis of 2022.
The election turned into a referendum on the bailout imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The vote took place peacefully, but as a precaution the presidency declared a curfew until 6 a.m. local time Sunday (8:30 p.m. Eastern time) “to protect the population,” police said.
The government declared Monday a public holiday, banned the sale of alcohol over the weekend and said no gatherings or victory celebrations would be allowed until a week after the final results are in.
Forced march
At the head of the country for two years, Ranil Wickremesinghe was aiming for a new mandate with the sole agenda of continuing the island’s forced recovery.
“I have already done a lot, I have brought this country out of bankruptcy,” he repeated Saturday while voting in the capital Colombo. “Now I will make Sri Lanka a country with a developed economy, a social system and a political system.”
Mr Wickremesinghe succeeded President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July 2022, who was driven from his palace by protesters angry over inflation and shortages.
In exchange for $2.9 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he tightened the belts of Sri Lanka’s 22 million people, with tax increases and cuts in public spending.
Two years later, order has returned to the streets and the economy has recovered, although it is still very pale, the IMF warned.
Poverty
Sri Lanka’s early recovery has come at the cost of increasing poverty, which now affects more than a quarter of its 22 million people, according to the World Bank.
A large majority of Sri Lankans are weary, which has benefited the opposition.
Another opposition figure, Sajith Premadasa, 57, also won some of the support of the disaffected.
A former close associate of Ranil Wickremesinghe, he has also pledged to extract concessions from the IMF.
“Progress has been made, but the country is still far from being out of the rut,” warned the IMF’s communications chief, Julie Kozack, last week.