Dissanayake leads Marxist JVP to ‘remarkable’ turnaround in Lanka

Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has risen from a humble background to the pinnacle of leadership in Sri Lanka, presenting himself as a transformative leader to young voters and those tired of the ‘corrupt politics’ of the traditional politicians. Dissanayake, 56, popularly known as AKD, was on Sunday declared the winner of Saturday’s presidential election.

The election on Saturday was the first to be held since mass protests unseated Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022 after the country suffered an economic crisis.

Violent past and path forward

• Party had led two bloody rebellions in 1971 and between 1987 and 1990 to overthrow popular governments and faced brutal state crackdowns each time
• Will have to ensure Sri Lanka sticks with the IMF programme until 2027 to get its economy on a stable growth path, reassure markets, repay debt, attract investors and help quarter of its people out of poverty

His accession to the post is a remarkable turnaround for his half-century-old party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which had long remained on the margins. He is Sri Lanka’s first-ever Marxist party leader to become head of state.

The leader of the JVP’s broader front, the National People’s Power (NPP), Dissanayake’s anti-corruption message and his promise of a change in political culture resonated strongly with young voters who have been demanding system change since the economic crisis.

The NPP’s popularity has risen sharply since 2022 after securing only around three per cent of the vote in the last presidential election in 2019. “In our country, only an un-corrupt force will take action against the corrupt. The slogan of punishing the corrupt has been echoed on stage since 1994. The corrupt will never punish the corrupt. It is the NPP’s priority to end corruption,” he said in an interview with the Daily Mail online in August.

Dissanayake, during another event in March, passionately asserted the political struggle was not merely about a change of government but an endeavour to usher in political, economic and social transformations of paramount importance in Sri Lanka’s history.

Dissanayake, who hails from rural Thambuttegama in the North Central province, is a science graduate from the Colombo suburban Kelaniya University. He joined the JVP, the mother party of the NPP, in 1987 at the height of their anti-Indian movement. The JVP dubbed the Indian intervention as a betrayal of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

However, Dissanayake’s visit to India in February this year is seen as a change in the NPP leadership’s approach towards India, expressing alignment with foreign investment interests. With JVP’s taking up democratic politics in the late 90s, Dissanayake got a place in the JVP central committee.

With the JVP leaving the government over 2004 Tsunami relief aid distribution to the North, then controlled by the LTTE, Dissanayake became the parliamentary group leader of the JVP in 2008. He became his party’s chief in 2014.

In 2019, the JVP rebranded itself as the NPP, which embraced sections of Sri Lankan society that had never been enamoured towards the JVP given its violent past.