The Presidential Election held last month is a likely signal of the continued downfall of the two party system which has governed Sri Lanka since gaining independence in 1948. The election of Anura Kumara Dissanayake from the legacy leftist JVP’s new avatar the National People’s Power (NPP) is a significant milestone in Sri Lankan political history. 

There was a clear popular sentiment amongst the public psyche in the lead up to the election that a protest vote was forming against the established power structures, party politics and the political elite, which many have come to loathe. The dramatic rise of the remodelled JVP in the form of the NPP, from a party that only polled three percent of votes in 2019 to the victor in the Presidential Election is symbolic of the collapse of the traditional two-party system that dominated Sri Lankan.

With the General Election now only six weeks ahead, the new political opposition seems to be dragging their feet in getting prepared or forming a unified front against the NPP, which is better organised and ready to claim a bigger slice of the parliamentary pie, come 14 November. The two main opposition parties are today showcasing what the two party system and political elitism has descended national politics to. With leaders of the UNP and the SJB unable to find common ground, lost in their egos, and the SLFP and SLPP still in disarray, the chances for the NPP to gain ground at the Parliamentary Election next month seem rather clear. That is if there are no major hiccups with the caretaker government’s handling of day-to-day business.  

For the first time in history, the opposition is made up of both the UNP, its offspring the SJB and the SLFP and its remnants of its problem child, the SLPP. Since 1951 and the formation of the SLFP, the two party system, polarised between the centre-right UNP and centrist SLFP has been a structural feature of Sri Lankan politics. While the many alliances had been formed and disbanded through history both parties had firmly been the power blocs which governed alternatively since 1948. The UNP crumbled into what became the SJB, and the SLFP fragmented into the SLPP.

Over the last four years, with the economic climate worsening post Easter Sunday bombings, rapid erosion of public faith in the State, the Covid pandemic, coupled with the disastrous governance decisions made by the SLPP Government, a wave of anti-establishment discourse rose from the masses. With such sentiments on the rise there was a vacuum in the political space in Sri Lanka which needed to be filled. The timing could not have been better for the JVP, who after decades of being cast aside at the ballot box, had been rebranding themselves post war by dropping the ethno-nationalist strategy and returning to their anti-establishment policies which focus on anti-corruption. Adding a new group of ‘faces’ and absorbing individuals with credibility from academia and communities of professionals, the rebranded JVP – now NPP, was in at the right place at the right time to ride the new populist wave, bringing millions of disgruntled citizens into their fold to propel their political machine. With the onset of the ‘aragalaya’ protest movement, which was in line with the JVP’s long-held strategy of mobilising the downtrodden against the corrupt elite, echoed with the middle-class of the country for the first time, reinforcing their strength and called into question the long-standing two-party system power governance. The economic crisis and the growing disdain about poor governance and corruption aided anti-establishment narratives the JVP had, and the NPP now promoted. It is evident that the NPP did not want to damage their momentum by absorbing ‘politically rejected individuals’ to their ranks, a mistake which cost the former President Ranil Wickremesinghe dearly.

Regardless of who wins enough seats in parliament on 14 November to form the next government of Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan politics hardly would be the same again. It remains to be seen if the SLFP/SLPP and the UNP/SJB can reinvent themselves adequately to win back their voter base, or if they too will fragment further and evolve into a new political formation. It also remains to be seen if the NPP can deliver the changes they have promised without putting Sri Lanka into another economic tailspin, create unrest, or anger the geopolitical gods, enough to cause ‘regime change’. Time will tell.