President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (popularly known as AKD) leading the National People’s Power (NPP) to a landslide victory at the General Elections in November with a two-thirds majority in Parliament sends many signals. 

The NPP – which sported Sinhala nationalism as its Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – won 159 seats, as well as the most number of seats in 21 of the 22 electoral districts, with Batticaloa being the exception. This clearly indicated that people all over the country, regardless of their ethnicity or religion, wanted a change, most likely having been disgusted by the conduct of mainstream national parties. 

There are many firsts in AKD’s Government. The Cabinet of 21 ministers sworn in on 24 November is one of the smallest ever in Sri Lanka’s democratic history. It has its first woman Prime Minister in three decades, that too one not belonging to a political family. As every member of the Cabinet is a graduate, it is also perhaps the most educated Cabinet ever. 

We are told that among the 21 members are three professors and three doctors – including two allopathic ones – with the Prime Minister herself being an academic doctorate holder. All of them come without any political baggage, so people will expect them to maintain this status quo. It is also a Cabinet full of the inexperienced, as only a few of them, including AKD, have been ministers previously. 

While the ministers have the potential to work smarter, AKD has the additional burden of leading an inexperienced team that will be steering the nation towards progress. They will be expected to go the extra mile to deliver on their promises.

There are other firsts too, such as over 20 women – mostly from non-political families – having been elected as Members of Parliament (MPs). They include two women MPs – Krishnan Kalaichelvi from Nuwara Eliya and Ambika Samuel from Badulla, from among the Hill-Country Tamils.

The NPP should be commended for another first; the nomination of Sugath Wasantha de Silva, a visually challenged person, to Parliament. De Silva is a well-known activist for the rights of the visually impaired and disabled communities. This showed that the Government has recognised the need for parliamentary representation for the country’s 1.3 million persons with disabilities.

But ‘firsts’ alone may not help the AKD Government to cruise through the troubled waters of Sri Lankan politics. The waters are filled with sharks and crocodiles who have been deprived of power. They may be lying low now, but not for long, because they are well versed in political shenanigans. AKD must avoid two icebergs – economic progress and ending majoritarian politics – that have the potential to stall, if not sink, his Government, as earlier governments have done. 

Economic progress

The NPP previously rubbished a crucial deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when then President Ranil Wickremesinghe successfully negotiated the 48-month-long Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme. 

Despite this, President Dissanayake has been pragmatic enough to understand this as essential for economic recovery. Shortly after his election as President, AKD assured a high-powered IMF delegation that his Government would implement severe austerity and privatisation measures. Therefore, it was not surprising that the IMF reached a Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) on the third review under the nation’s EFF arrangement. 

IMF Senior Mission Chief for Sri Lanka Peter Breuer urged the Government to increase social spending in the upcoming budget. He commended the Government for its ambitious reform programme but stressed the importance of inclusivity in the nation’s economic recovery. 

He added: “Maintaining macroeconomic stability and restoring debt sustainability is key to securing Sri Lanka’s prosperity and requires persevering with responsible fiscal policy. Continued revenue mobilisation efforts and spending restraint are needed to prepare the 2025 Budget in line with programme objectives.”

It will be difficult for the Government to soften the impact of the tax burden without affecting revenue generation. Similarly, privatisation of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is not going to be easy, since NPP-controlled trade unions are also against the move.

The budget-making exercise slated for February 2025 will test the skills of the NPP Government in the clash between its ideology and IMF conditionalities. Under the circumstances, the news that Sri Lanka has been selected as one of 20 countries to establish a World Bank Group (WBG) integrated office, set to open in July 2025, should be heartwarming to AKD. 

WBG President Ajay Banga shared the news during a virtual meeting with President Dissanayake and Government officials to discuss Sri Lanka’s future development priorities. The establishment of the integrated South Asia office is expected to improve coordination between the four key WB institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

Ending Sinhalese majoritarian politics

President Dissanayake in his address to Parliament called for a political culture free of racism and divisiveness. He said that democracy did not mean forcing everyone to unite under a single umbrella, but rather letting diverse viewpoints and ethnic interests flourish against the backdrop of multi-party politics. 

“We do not advocate for one-party rule,” he declared. “It is the responsibility of our Government to represent and address the needs and aspirations of all citizens, regardless of whether they voted for us or not.” 

This showed that AKD has recognised the Sinhalese majoritarian politics practised overtly or covertly by successive governments as Sri Lanka’s core problem.

There are two aspects to Sinhalese majoritarian politics. One relates to managing Tamil nationalist aspirations and the other to coming to terms with the Muslim community. They are interrelated in some respects, because both Tamils and Muslims are wary of their distinct religious, linguistic, and cultural identities being subsumed by Sinhalese majoritarian politics. 

In the past, fringe elements of Theravada Buddhism have been let loose against Muslims to achieve political ends of the ruling party. Three decades of Tamil separatist war provokes latent fears of the Sinhalese when Tamil politicians use separatist rhetoric of Tamil nationalism to garner votes, even now.

Given this background, the biggest surprise in the General Elections was the NPP winning the most number of seats in the five electoral districts of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, except of course in Batticaloa. These provinces are populated mostly by Tamils and Muslims. The NPP won three of the six seats in Jaffna in the heartland of Sri Lankan Tamils.  

This clearly demonstrated that Tamils cannot be taken for granted by Tamil political parties and leaders using Tamil nationalist rhetoric alone. It was clear that Tamils, like the Sinhalese, aspired for a change in national leadership.

This confers a huge responsibility on AKD’s Government, not limited to fulfilling longstanding aspirations of Tamils and Muslims that have been promised many times but not met fully so far. At the same time, AKD and the NPP have to retain their grassroots support among the Sinhalese majority nurtured on majoritarian political rhetoric. This will be the biggest challenge facing the AKD Government.

The Government allowing the people in the north to observe Maaveerar Naal (Heroes’ Day) on 27 November to honour their deceased relatives in the separatist wars is a typical case in point. The Government clarified that while individuals would not be prevented from remembering their loved ones who had died during the country’s civil war, they must refrain from displaying any logos, uniforms, or images related to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as it remained a proscribed organisation. This is more easily said than done, because pro-LTTE rhetoric is the lifeblood of many Tamil parties.

According to a report in a national newspaper, Tamil politician M.K. Shivajilingam organised an event to mark slain LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s birthday that fell on 26 November at an empty plot of land in Valvettithurai, where Prabhakaran’s ancestral house was destroyed by security forces. 

A banner was put up with Prabhakaran’s picture. Local Police immediately got into action to cover the image with tape but allowed the event to proceed without any disturbances. Dr. Ramanathan Archchuna, the newly elected independent Tamil MP from Chavakachcheri, has called Prabhakaran his god on a podcast. Such provocative statements are likely to be exploited by hardline Sinhalese leaders, fringe elements, and Opposition parties.

The AKD Cabinet has one Tamil representative from the north. Ramalingam Chandrasekar, chosen by the NPP as a National List MP, has been made Minister of Fisheries, a post long held by Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) Leader Douglas Devananda. This is the only ministerial post given to a Tamil representative from the Northern Province.

For the first time in Sri Lanka’s history, there is no Muslim in the Cabinet. This is perhaps the biggest vulnerability in AKD’s Government. Even the pro-Rajapaksa Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), founded on the bedrock of Sinhalese majoritarian politics, had a Muslim minister in its Cabinet. 

President Dissanayake has loftily declared that “no one will be allowed to use nationalist or religious rhetoric as a means to gain political power in this country”. Historically, such declarations by presidents came to nought when Sinhalese Buddhist fringe elements went on a rampage against Muslims. Muslims have been on the defensive since April 2019, when jihadi elements carried out the Easter Sunday bombings, killing 269 people, including 45 foreigners. 

Politically, the wounds caused by the attack have not healed, with findings of inquiries and commissions appointed to look into the attacks mired in controversy. The AKD Government, which is trying to bring the controversy to a closure, should be wary of yet another bout of anti-Muslim campaigning by mainstream Opposition parties.

In conclusion, the AKD Government’s journey will not be easy despite the two-thirds majority it enjoys in Parliament. Opposition parties, particularly those which have been mauled, such as the SLPP, are not going to allow the Government to fulfil people’s expectations. 

AKD should have a wider consultative process beyond his party. He should build bridges with Opposition parties and civil society leaders so that there is a broad consensus on key issues that are included in the NPP agenda. It is important to tame Sinhalese majoritarianism so that the spirit of nationalism demonstrated by minorities in voting the NPP to power is rewarded.

(The writer is a retired MI specialist on South Asia and terrorism, and served as the Head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force [IPKF] in Sri Lanka from 1987-’90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Email: haridirect@gmail.com; website: https://col.hariharan.info)