Sri Lanka: Landslide election victory of new president and party raises high public hopes, but there are no illusions

Don Samantha, Asia Commune 

Sri Lanka is a small island in the Indian Ocean located southeast of India. Its surface area is 65,610 km2. The country has a population of 22.2 million. The languages spoken there are mainly Sinhalese and Tamil. The English language has also been used there since the period of the British colonial empire. The country is multi-confessional: there are Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

Benefiting from India's struggle for independence, Sri Lanka was liberated from British colonization on February 4, 1948. From that date until the presidential election on September 21, 2024, the country was ruled by several pro-imperial families. For the past 76 years, Sri Lanka has been ruled by the Senanayake (UNP), Bandaranaike (SLFP), Wickremesinghe (UNP) and Rajapaksa (SLFP) families. Clannish, ideologically far-right and pure Sinhalese racists, the Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa ruled the country together on the eve of the 2024 presidential election.

Four families ruled Sri Lanka from 1948 to 2024

Let's take a look at some of the historical implications of these four political families that have ruled Sri Lanka for the past seven decades.

In 1953, a massive "hartal" took place in Sri Lanka. A "hartal" is a mass public protest. Dudley Senanayake was Prime Minister at the time. Ten demonstrators were then killed by the police of his government. The uprising was such that Dudley Senanayake had to hold his cabinet meeting on a ship off the coast. This struggle was led by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), which was a huge political party at that time. This party was then the largest Trotskyist party in the Fourth International. Although the capitalist rulers then left the government, the LSSP was unable to gain political power. This happened because this party did not have an internationalist revolutionary perspective. This mistake was experienced as a betrayal by part of the mobilized population.

As a result of this mistake by the LSSP, the Sinhalese nationalist ideology began to strengthen. In 1956, Solomon Bandaranaike, a well-established spokesman for Sinhalese chauvinism, became the country's prime minister. Immediately after his appointment, the Sinhala language was enshrined in the Constitution as an official language. Tamil speakers then felt like second-class citizens. On September 26, 1959, after making some concessions to the Tamil language following violent ethnic clashes, Solomon Bandaranaike was murdered by a racist Sinhalese Buddhist monk – one of his foster fathers!

In 1971, there was a youth insurrectionary movement led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist). At that time, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, widow of Solomon Bandaranaike, held the position of Prime Minister. His government killed 20,000 young people and suppressed the rebellion. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) was also part of this repressive government. There is one point to emphasize here. The LSSP is a party that brought great notoriety to the left-wing movement from 1935 to 1964. This party entered into a policy of class collaboration in 1964. It has since become a pseudo-left party.

The dictatorial and neo-liberal turn of the late 1970s

In 1978, the Jayewardene-Wickremesinghe regime abolished democracy, establishing a dictatorial constitution. This constitution made the presidency an executive position and gave the president considerable powers. Left-wing parties that opposed the president's executive power were eliminated. The secretary general of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), which opposed the dictatorial constitution, was expelled from the University of Peradeniya and imprisoned.

In 1980, a general strike took place. The strike was led by union leaders who are members of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP). The administration of Jayewardene & Wickremesinghe violently suppressed the strike. And 40,000 workers in the public and private sectors have been laid off.

In 1981, the Jaffna Library, which was the largest library in South Asia, was burned down and destroyed under the auspices of the Jayewardene-Wickremesinghe regime. This has been very painful for the Tamil people.

In 1982, a one-year presidential election and a referendum on a 6-year extension of the current parliament organized by the Jayewardene and Wickremesinghe kept the latter in power.

In 1983, very violent clashes broke out between Tamils and Sinhalese. Thousands of Tamils were killed. Tens of thousands of Tamils have fled Sri Lanka.

The Jayewardene-Wickremesinghe government took political advantage of these hostilities: it banned the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, Maoist), the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL, Stalinist) and the Nawa Sama Samaja Party (NSSP, Trotskyist – future Sri Lankan section of the Fourth International) and arrested their leaders, on the pretext that these parties supported the Tamils.

A new insurgency was led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) from 1987 to 1990. The Jayewardene-Wickremesinghe government violently suppressed the insurgency, killing 60,000 rebels.

At the same time, thousands of left-wing activists who defended the right to self-determination of minorities were killed. These massacres were perpetrated by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) or by racist Sinhalese groups cooperating with it.

The Jayewardene-Wickremesinghe government was defeated in the 1994 parliamentary elections. Supported by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) and the left-wing parties led by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike, daughter of Salomon and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, came to power. She was appointed Prime Minister and then elected President.

In 1996, the celebration of International Workers' Day was declared banned.

Moreover, the peace process with the Tamil people of the north and east and the Tamil people of the plantations that began in 1995 was making no progress at all.

The Tamils in the north and east then began to move towards military solutions. The north and east thus gradually found themselves in a situation of war. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out suicide bombings throughout the country. Sri Lanka's major financial centers have been under siege. And, in 2001, Sri Lanka's economic growth fell to -1.55%.

The government of Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike has therefore attracted the discontent of the population. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister from 1993 to 1994, became Prime Minister again after the legislative elections held in 2001. The latter then began peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Support of the JVP-Maoist (the party of the new president) for the dictatorial regime and the war against the Tamils

Taking sides against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on racist grounds, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) ousted Ranil Wickremesinghe from power by forming a coalition government with Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike in 2004.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) did not stop there. He worked hard to bring Mahinda Rajapaksa to the presidency in 2005. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) continued to be extremely racist. Mahinda Rajapaksa, who became president, was then propelled into a fierce and destructive war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The party of the current president Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, supported the Sinhalese army in the massacre of the Tamil people.

In May 2009, Mahinda Rajapaksa won a military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with the support of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist). Immediately after this victory, Mahinda Rajapaksa decided to hold an early presidential election. Mahinda Rajapaksa's opponent was Sarath Fonseka, who had been the commander of the Sri Lankan army during that war. Within 24 hours of Mahinda Rajapaksa's victory in the early presidential election of January 2010, her rival, Sarath Fonseka, was arrested and imprisoned.

Mahinda Rajapaksa's second term was due to end in January 2015. But, running for a third term, the latter amended the Constitution so that he could run in the 2015 presidential election. He ran in that election, but was defeated. It was with the support of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) and the pseudo-leftists that Mahinda Rajapaksa's rival candidate, Maithripala Sirisena, won the 2015 presidential election.

The policies of Sirisena/Wickremesinghe and then their rivals, the Rajapaksas, led to the economic and financial disaster of 2022

On the economic front, tax concessions were granted to big businessmen, indirect taxes were significantly increased, and the country continued to borrow international sovereign bonds at exorbitant interest rates. Ranil Wickremesinghe thus prepared for the economic crisis that will rage in the early 2020s under the presidency of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Enraged by Mahinda Rajapaksa's defeat in the 2015 presidential election, the Rajapaksa clan formed a common opposition to the new government. This opposition has exacerbated nationalism and fanaticism. This exacerbation reached its peak with the suicide attacks on Easter Sunday 2019 causing the death of 269 people.

The Rajapaksas used these 2019 Easter attacks to return to power in November 2019. In particular, they promised to bring the perpetrators of these attacks to justice. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda Rajapaksa's younger brother, was elected president on November 16, 2019 and appointed the latter as prime minister.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa had been Secretary of the Ministry of Defence under his older brother. He has been accused by human rights organizations of being responsible for the crimes committed during this period.

Shortly after the Rajapaksas were reinstated in power, taxes on imported goods were reduced – for example, the tax on a kilogram of imported sugar had been reduced from 50 rupees to 25 cents. Then tax concessions were granted to large traders. The amount of tax losses for the country was then about 422 million rupees (US$1.4 million).

In April 2021, imports of chemical fertilizers were banned. This caused a complete collapse of the agricultural economy. The food shortage was not long in coming. At the same time, Sri Lanka was affected by the Covid 19 pandemic. The entire economy then collapsed. From spring 2021 to autumn 2022, the population severely lacked food. The country had no foreign currency left to import gas and gasoline. At the end of 2021, foreign exchange reserves were only US$500 million. Foreign banks then stopped issuing letters of credit. In 2022, the inflation rate on food had reached 90% compared to the previous year and the general inflation rate had reached 70%. Due to a lack of fuel, the power cuts lasted 12 hours a day. The tourism industry had completely collapsed. Due to the lack of fertilizers, the export industry of major crops such as tea, coconut, and rubber has also collapsed. People were starting to die of exhaustion in the queues that stretched to the gas and petrol distribution points. Acute malnutrition has been rampant among children. Hospital and school structures have experienced dysfunctions.

In April 2022, Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy. The vast majority of the population was unable to imagine what would happen next.

There was no organized left-wing movement in the country that could offer a solution to the oppressed. There were left-wing parties and groups, but there was no responsible internationalist political entity. It was just a populist competition between pseudo-left parties.

The 2022 uprising and its repression

In the spring of 2022, women held a rally in Colombo surrounding the president's private residence. This rally was not driven by any political or trade union formation. Then, self-organizing, people came to Colombo by the tens of thousands. They occupied the president's house and the prime minister's house. The private residences of most of the ministers as well as the business premises they owned were set on fire.

On July 13, 2022, Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives. On July 14, 2022, he announced that he had officially resigned from the presidency. The country was then in a revolutionary situation.

Workers in South Asia and around the world were watching Sri Lanka very closely.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist), the party of the current president, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, stopped calling for a general strike and called for waiting for local elections. The thousands of people who had travelled to Colombo in the desire to achieve a real change in society then finally found themselves as simple visitors to the official residences of the President and the Prime Minister, President's House and Temple Trees, picnicking in the gardens of these palaces. In the absence of a perspective, the struggle was not victorious over the Constitution, which made Ranil Wickremesinghe Prime Minister again and then President.

As soon as he came to power, Ranil Wickremesinghe violently repressed the mobilization, expelling the protesters from their camps in Colombo and destroying their tents. All the elections have been postponed. The Indian ruling class was terrified of social upheaval in the Asian region. As a result, the Indian government immediately offered Sri Lanka a US$4,000 million soft loan. Capitalizing on this loan, Ranil Wickramasinghe began to manage the crisis. Subsidies have been allocated for food aid. Voluntary associations from foreign countries have also organized themselves to provide food to schoolchildren.

From July 22, 2022, the Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa ruled the country together until the presidential election on September 21, 2024. The members of the government appointed on July 22, 2022 by Ranil Wickremesinghe, elected president the day before by parliament, were almost all supporters of the Rajapaksa clan, or even the same politicians who were in charge under the presidency of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. As usual, the Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa appealed to the world's major powers for loans. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) then began. According to the latest reports from Sri Lanka's Ministry of Finance, the total amount of debt stood at US$96,170 million as of December 2023.

The imposition of a drastic austerity policy by the IMF

At the end of March 2024, the total amount of debt amounted to US$100,184 million, of which US$14,741 million was in international sovereign bonds, which had been borrowed on the open market at very high interest rates. 

Source: Quarterly Debt Bulletin 2024 - First Quarter, Ministry of Finance, Economic Stabilization and National Policy, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka adopted an open economy policy in 1977. This economic policy mainly concerned imports and external debt. In 1977, Sri Lanka's total external debt was US$743 million. Over the next 47 years, the country contracted an external debt of US$99,447 million. The sustainability of this debt had not been demonstrated. In 2019, the total foreign exchange reserves were US$7,000 million. By the end of 2022, the amount of these reserves was only US$500 million. Sri Lanka was trapped in debt. Its 22.2 million inhabitants have found themselves below the poverty line. Countries such as Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Argentina, Kenya, Lebanon, Ghana, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ecuador and Suriname are unable to repay such a debt.

In 2023, a process of restructuring external and domestic debt was initiated. The beginning of this restructuring process was carried out under the directives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which granted Sri Lanka financial aid in exchange for the implementation of austerity measures.

The restructuring of the country's domestic debt then immediately focused on pension funds (ETFs & ETFs). The total amount of these funds, made up of Sri Lankan workers' money, amounted to more than US$10,000 million. In the name of restructuring the domestic debt, a 30% tax has been imposed on these pension funds and the interest rate on these retirement savings has been reduced from 14% to 9%. While workers were thus forced to bear the burden of restructuring the domestic debt, the collection of taxes owed by a large number of businessmen who had evaded taxes was postponed day by day.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to provide US$2,900 million in concessional loans as part of the external debt restructuring and to extend the debt repayment period by several years. He agreed to an increase in taxes, up to 400% in some sectors, as well as the privatisation of around 80 public companies.

AKD's victory in the presidential election... and its immediate allegiance to the IMF

It is in this context that the 2024 presidential election was held. The leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist), Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, won the presidential election of 21 September 2024 under the label of the National People's Power (NPP), an alliance he had formed around his party. The citizens of Sri Lanka had to wait two years before they could confirm their desire for political and social change expressed in the streets through the ballot box. The Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa, who, in defiance of the voice of the people, had not held a presidential election at the time, were defeated. Anura Kumara Dissanayaka had been elected president by universal suffrage.

The world's media reported that a Marxist leader had become president of Sri Lanka. Neither this new president, nor his party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist), nor his electoral front (NPP) are Marxists. The whole world must know this.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-Maoist) was, from its creation in 1965, a petty-bourgeois party. The current president of Sri Lanka is the leader of this party.

Four days after taking office, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka said she wanted to talk immediately with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). On October 2, 2024, IMF officials came to Colombo and met with him. Two days after the meeting, the IMF announced in a press release that it was now ready to work closely with Sri Lanka's new president.

In view of this IMF announcement, it seems that Sri Lanka's new government has happily entered the house of capitalism in ruins.

As soon as he dissolved parliament on September 24, 2024, President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka explained to a very emotional people that he should be able to be granted more power in the legislative elections of November 14, 2024. The president has pledged to satisfy all the wishes of the people if they give him a majority in parliament.

What the people expect from the new president

Keeping this promise of the new president is a challenge.

Indeed, by way of example:

- On November 14, 2023, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka issued a judgment in which four executives were found guilty of the bankruptcy of Sri Lanka. Three of them belong to the same family. They are Gotabaya Rajapaksa (president from 2019 to 2022 in particular), Mahinda Rajapaksa (prime minister from 2019 to 2022 in particular) and Basil Rajapaksa (finance minister from 2021 to 2022 in particular). The fourth is Ajith Nivard Cabral (governor of the central bank from 2021 to 2022 in particular). However, Basil Rajapaksa left for the United States and the other three culprits still live in Sri Lanka today...

- Those responsible for the 2019 Easter Sunday attack are still at large...

- The failure to implement the recommendations of the Sri Lankan Commission of Inquiry into War Crimes Committed in the North and East of the Country in 2009 has not been noted ...

- The land cultivated by the central Tamils is still under the custody of the army. Tamil farmers, who have lived in the central hills for 200 years, still do not own a pole of land ...

- Sri Lankan citizenship has still not been granted to Tamils...

The population expects the new government to provide quick solutions to these issues.

We must rebuild a revolutionary perspective

Although very small, several other left-wing parties had presented candidates for the 2024 presidential election. The candidates of these other left-wing parties won a total of 0.31% of the votes cast. These were the same results as those these parties had achieved in recent decades. These parties did not offer new perspectives for the new generation. Their participation in the 2024 presidential election was limited, as usual, to the registration of their candidates with the Electoral Commission.

In many countries of the world, the revolutionary movement of the left has weakened. The new generation must build solutions that will put an end to capitalism. Capitalism has led the whole world to barbarism. The time of stagnant communism is over. The new generation must begin a new revolutionary chapter. Workers around the world must unite to form an International Workers' Party.

Asia Commune works to develop a new political, economic and social perspective for and with the peoples of the class societies of South Asia.

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