Presidential Marxism: AKD and the Sri Lankan Elections
Anura Kumara Dissanayake, known with convenient laziness as AKD, became Sri Lanka’s latest president after a runoff count focusing on preferential votes. The very fact that it went to a second count with a voter turnout of 77% after a failure of any candidate to secure a majority was itself historic, the first since Sri Lankan independence in 1948.
AKD’s presidential victory tickles and excites the election watchers for various reasons. He does not hail from any of the dynastic families that have treated rule and the presidential office as electoral real estate and aristocratic privilege. The fall of the Rajapaksa family, propelled by mass protests against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s misrule in 2022, showed that the public had, at least for the time, tired of that tradition.
Not only is the new president outside the traditional orbit of rule and favour; he heads a political grouping known as the National People’s Power (NPP), a colourfully motley combination of trade unions, civil society members, women’s groups and students. But the throbbing core of the group is the Janatha Vimukhti Peramuna (JVP), which boasts a mere three members in the 225-member parliament.
The resume of the JVP is colourfully cluttered and, in keeping with Sri Lankan political history, spattered with its fair share of blood. It was founded in 1965 in the mould of a Marxist-Leninist party and led by Rohana Wijeweera. It mounted, without success, two insurrections – in 1971 and between 1987 and 1989. On both occasions, thousands died in the violence that followed, including Wijeweera and many party leaders, adding to the enormous toll that would follow in the civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
It is also worth noting that the seduction of Marxism, just to add a level of complexity to matters, was not confined to the JVP. The Tamil resistance had itself found it appealing. A assessment from the Central Intelligence Agency from March 1986 offers the casual remark that “all major insurgent organizations claim allegiance to Marxism” with the qualification that “most active groups are motivated principally by ethnic rivalry with the majority Sinhalese.” None had a clear political program “other than gaining Columbo’s recognition for a traditional homeland and a Tamil right to self-determination.”
By the time Dissanayake was cutting his teeth in local politics, the JVP was another beast, having been reconstituted by Somawansa Amarasinghe as an organisation keen to move into the arena of ballots rather than the field of armed struggle. Dissanayake is very much a product of that change. “We need to establish a new clean political culture … We will do the utmost to win back the people’s respect and trust in the political system.”
In a statement, Dissanayake was a picture of modest, if necessary, acknowledgment. He praised the collective effort behind his victory, one being a consequence of the multitude. “This achievement is not the result of any single person’s work, but the collective effort of hundreds of thousands of you. Your commitment has brought us this far, and for that, I am deeply grateful. This victory belongs to all of us.”
The unavoidable issue of racial fractiousness in the country is also mentioned. “The unity of Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and all Sri Lankans is the bedrock of this new beginning.” How the new administration navigates such traditionally poisoned waters will be a matter of interest and challenge, not least given the Sinhala nationalist rhetoric embraced by the JVP, notably towards the Tamil Tigers.
Pundits are also wondering where the new leader might position himself on foreign relations. There is the matter of India’s unavoidably dominant role, a point that riles Dassanayake. His preference, and a point he has repeatedly made, is self-sufficiency and economic sovereignty. But India has a market worth US$6.7 billion whereas China, a more favoured country by the new president, comes in at US$2 billion.
On economics, a traditional, if modest program of nationalisation is being put forth by the JVP within the NPP, notably on such areas as utilities. A wealth redistribution policy is on the table, including progressive, efficient taxation while a production model to encourage self-sufficiency, notably on important food products, is envisaged. Greater spending is proposed in education and health care.
The issue of dealing with international lenders is particularly pressing, notably in dealing with the International Monetary Fund, which approved a US$2.9 billion bailout to the previous government on extracting the standard promises of austerity. “We expect to discuss debt restructuring with the relevant parties and complete the process quickly and obtain the funds,” promises Dissanayake. That said, the governor of the Central Bank and the secretary to the ministry of finance, both important figures in implementing the austerity measures, have remained.
In coming to power, AKD has eschewed demagogic self-confidence. “I have said before that I am not a magician – I am an ordinary citizen. There are things I know and don’t know. My aim is to gather those with the knowledge and skills to help lift this country.” In the febrile atmosphere that is Sri Lankan politics, that admission is a humble, if realistic one
Image by Bunty456, Creative Commons 4.0
Under normal circumstances, the victory of Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Sri Lanka’s presidential election would have been called a political earthquake.
But with many having labelled the left-leaning politician as a strong frontrunner in the run-up to the poll, his win was not a massive surprise for Sri Lankans.
The 55-year-old Dissanayake heads the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, which includes his Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), or People’s Liberation Front – a party that has traditionally backed strong state intervention and lower taxes, and campaigned for leftist economic policies.
With his win, the island will see for the first time a government headed by a leader with a strong left-wing ideology.
“It’s a vote for a change,” Harini Amarasuriya, a senior NPP leader and MP, told the BBC.
“The result is a confirmation of what we have been campaigning for – like a drastic change from the existing political culture and the anti-corruption drive.”
The outsider
Dissanayake is expected to dissolve parliament and call parliamentary elections soon.
It will be a challenge, however, for him to implement his coalition policies in a country that has adopted liberalisation and free-market principles from the late 1970s.
The resounding victory of the NPP came following a wave of public anger over the devastating economic crisis in 2022, when Sri Lanka ground to a halt as inflation surged and its foreign reserves emptied.
The country was unable to pay for imports of food, fuel and medicines and declared bankruptcy.
An unprecedented public uprising against the government’s handling of the economy forced then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country in July 2022.
Two months earlier, his elder brother and veteran leader Mahinda had been forced to resign as prime minister during the initial phase of the protest, known as “aragalaya” (struggle) in Sinhala.
Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as president with the backing of the Rajapaksas’ party. He stabilised the economy and negotiated a $2.9bn bailout package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
For the millions of Sri Lankans who took to the streets, the political change was nothing but a transfer of power between established parties and political dynasties.
The NPP and Dissanayake capitalised on this sentiment, as many in the country saw him as someone outside the old order.
Though he was a minister briefly when the JVP became part of a coalition government during the presidency of Chandrika Kumaratunga in the early 2000s, Dissanayake’s supporters say he is not tainted by corruption or cronyism charges.
The question is how his presidency will tackle Sri Lanka’s massive economic challenges.
During his campaign he promised to lower taxes and utility bills. That means lower revenue for the government, and will go against some of the conditions set by the IMF loan.
“We will work within the broad agreement that the IMF has reached within the current government,” said Amarasuriya from the NPP. “But we will negotiate certain details, particularly regarding the austerity measures.”
A history of violence
The election win is a remarkable turnaround for Dissanayake, who received just over 3% of votes in the 2019 presidential poll.
But while he may have convinced a large section of voters this time, there are concerns over the political ideology of Dissanayake and his JVP, which is remembered for insurrections that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the late 1980s.
From 1987, the JVP spearheaded an armed revolt against the Sri Lankan government in what would come to be known as the “season of terror”.
The insurrectionist campaign, spurred by discontent among the youth of the rural lower and middle classes, precipitated a conflict marked by raids, assassinations and attacks against both political opponents and civilians.
Dissanayake, who was elected to the JVP’s central committee in 1997 and became its leader in 2008, has since apologised for the party’s violence. But his victory at the polls raises questions as to what role the JVP might play in Sri Lankan politics going forward.
“The JVP has a history of violence and there are concerns about the party’s position in a new government,” said Bhavani Fonseka, a senior researcher with the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) in Colombo.
“I think Mr Dissanayake has softened the radical messaging during his public outreach. My question is, while he may have softened, what about the old guard of the JVP? Where do they situate themselves in a new government?”
Tamil concerns
Another challenge for Dissanayake will be to reach out to the country’s Tamil minority, who have been seeking devolution of powers to the north and east and reconciliation since the end of a civil war in May 2009.
That conflict, between the Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lankan state, erupted in 1983. The Tigers eventually had vast areas under their control in their fight for an independent territory in the island’s north and east, but were defeated and all but wiped out in a 2009 military offensive.
Fifteen years later, the Sri Lankan government’s promises to share power and devolve their own political authority in Tamil-majority areas have largely failed to materialise.
Though the votes for the NPP have increased in the north and the east, Tamils did not vote for Dissanayake overwhelmingly, reflecting concerns over the NPP’s policy towards their political demands.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner’s office in Geneva has urged the new government to pursue an inclusive national vision for Sri Lanka that addresses the root causes of the ethnic conflict.
The government “should undertake the fundamental constitutional and institutional reforms needed to strengthen democracy and the devolution of political authority and to advance accountability and reconciliation,” it said in its latest report.
Tigers and dragons
It’s not just about domestic policies, either. The rise of the NPP and JVP is being keenly watched in India and China, which are vying for influence in Sri Lanka. Both have loaned billions of dollars to Colombo.
Dissanayake, with his Marxist leanings, is seen as ideologically closer to China. The JVP in the past had been critical of India’s policy towards Sri Lanka and opposed what it called Indian expansionism.
During his campaign speech Dissanayake also promised to scrap a wind power project in the north funded by the Indian business tycoon Gautam Adani, who is believed to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The Adani project’s costs should decrease, given its large scale, but it’s the opposite,” Dissanayake said last week. “This is clearly a corrupt deal, and we will definitely cancel it.”
In any case, expectations are high among many ordinary Sri Lankans who have voted for change.
“Whoever comes to power, they should reduce the prices of food, fuel and electricity. They also need to increase wages,” said Colombo resident Sisira Padmasiri. “The new president should give some immediate relief to the public.”
Experts point out that Sri Lanka will have to make further tough decisions on austerity measures to balance the books and meet its debt obligations.
Once he takes over, Dissanayake will find out how far he can realistically fulfil the expectations of the people.
Comrade President? Change and Continuity in Sri Lanka
Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s (AKD)victory on 21 September as the candidate of the centre-left National People’s Power (NPP) coalition is highly significant for symbolic and substantive reasons. His predecessors have been from the social and political elite that has mis-ruled Sri Lanka since independence from Britain in 1948. Some were born into that elite, while a couple (Ranasinghe Premadasa, Maithripala Sirisena) made their way into it through the business of politics before they occupied the presidency. In contrast, Dissanayaka’s political life has been as an outsider and critic of that elite.
The new president was born to a rural poor family originally from the land-hungry highlands, that migrated as others have done to improve their lives in the dry zone irrigation-fed north central region. His father was a minor grade employee in a government department; and his mother cared for an extended household while tending their rice paddy smallholding. He was the first in his immediate family to attend university, studying physical science at a public university.
In the late 1980s at Kelaniya university he was a student activist of the then underground Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP-People’s Liberation Front) – it has been banned in 1983 by the right-wing United National Party regime and then severely repressed during its second anti-state insurgency between 1987 and 1989 – becoming a fulltime political activist after the party was legalised, and began rebuilding including through electoral politics. As someone from an exploited and marginalised class; as well as leader of a formally Marxist-Leninist party, his election as head of state and government in Sri Lanka’s Gaullist-style system, has broken the mould.
Candidate for Change
He campaigned though not on a socialist or anti-capitalist platform, but rather taking up the cry for “change” in a degenerate decades-old political culture which is blamed by large sections of the population across class, gender, ethnicity, and region, for the economic catastrophe of 2021-2022, peaking in Sri Lanka’s sovereign bankruptcy when it defaulted on servicing its then US$32 billion external debt.
The expectation of those who voted him in, and many of those who did not, is that his government will transform the political culture where politicians lord over the people in between election day; reward themselves whether in government or opposition with privileges and perks; profit from their office through deal-making and bribes from other political parties, local and foreign businesses; and access to government and international tenders and contracts; and enjoy impunity from investigation, prosecution, and imprisonment, for their abuses and crimes in office.
This was the sentiment of the 2022 popular uprising known as the janatha aragalaya (people’s struggle in Sinhala). Although that movement was short-lived, it contributed immensely to the leap in popularity of the National People’s Power coalition, that the JVP initiated in 2019 to broaden its class base from leftist petit-bourgeois and working-class layers to more conservative classes, paving AKD’s way into the presidency.
As his party is outside of the traditional political class; and therefore, untainted by sleaze; and has for many years made anti-corruption its central slogan, those wanting this ambiguous and elusive “change” turned to it. They rightly rejected the candidates of the two mainstream right-wing alliances (around former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, and the leader of the parliamentary opposition Sajith Premadasa).
While short of a majority, the NPP received the largest share of votes of over 5.6 million (42%), leading in 15 of the 22 electoral districts, aside from those with concentrations of ethnic minorities in the central, eastern, and northern regions. Its vote base is overwhelmingly from the majority Sinhala nation (75% of the population). But this time around, it has begun to gain followers among Muslim and Tamil minorities around the island, particularly the youth.
It has only three members in the 225-seat legislature; making its cabinet of ministers probably the smallest in the world. One of the early acts of the new president was an early dissolution of parliament (as constitutionally entitled). The general election will be on November 14 and the first sitting of the new house will be a week later. The NPP needs 113 seats to form a government. This is a tougher challenge than winning the presidency.
Whether the NPP government will reset the political system as its supporters expect; or be assimilated into it – as its once rivals of the Old Left, the ex-Trotskyist Lanka Samaja Party and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka have done – is an open question.
Stability for the rich
The government of Ranil Wickremesinghe, that he formed in partnership with the pro-Rajapaksa parliamentary majority and defections from the opposition, succeeded in stabilizing the economy and in reviving its growth, for the moneyed classes. Headline inflation was down to 0.5% last month. Usable foreign reserves are up to US$4.6 billion. The exchange rate has strengthened to around LKR300 to the US dollar. Gross domestic product will expand by almost 4% this year.
While the poor like the rich no longer queue for essentials of fuel, food and pharmaceuticals, the poor unlike the rich have no means to pay for them. There are no electricity cuts after tariffs were raised by 140%; but last year one million households were disconnected from the grid because they cannot afford the bill. Food prices increased three-fold on average, following Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, and the rupee going into freefall in the economic disaster of 2022, increasing food insecurity to 24% of all households. One in every four are below the official poverty line.
Sri Lanka entered its 17th loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund since 1965, in March of 2023. The US$2.9 billion extended fund facility over four years, is disbursed in twice-annual tranches that are conditional on meeting benchmarks of progress in structural reform of the economy.
The targets to be met are:
• A primary budget surplus (that is government revenue over expenditure) of 2.3% of gross domestic product by 2025;
• To reduce the government’s borrowing requirement (gross financing needs) to 13% of gross domestic product between 2027 and 2032;
• To reduce the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product to 95% by 2032.
Assuming these targets are achieved – with all the social and political costs associated with shrinking state expenditure and denying public stimulus for growth of employment and incomes – Sri Lanka’s total debt stock would be larger by 2027 than it was in 2023; and external debt service would gobble 30% of government revenue by 2027 according to a former US treasury official, making it more likely in his view that another sovereign debt default is an inevitability.
The structural reforms that the IMF program promotes, which are enthusiastically supported by political, administrative, and civil society, actors are to:
• raise indirect taxation, which is regressive as the poor fork out disproportionately more than the rich;
• raise bank interest rates, making borrowing more expensive which penalises micro and small enterprises;
• restructure domestic debt, where public sector retirement funds were major investors, leading to a drastic cut in the final value of benefits;
• retrench public sector workers to reduce the state payroll, which erodes public services further and creates market opportunities for private sector providers;
• remove subsidies on public goods such as fuel for transport and cooking and electricity through market-pricing;
• dismantle the social security system for ‘social safety nets’ that ‘target’ specific groups based on income and assets;
• casualize the labor market through deregulatory renovation of the labor code;
• consolidate agricultural land into largescale holdings for commercial (export) crops through land titles to small farmers currently cultivating food crops; and
• freeze capital expenditure projects by government, with implications for public infrastructure, delivery of public services, the construction industry, and employment.
IMF Agreement and Economic Orientation
The JVP, which is the main constituent of the National People’s Power coalition, originated in the youth radicalisation of the 1960s as a revolutionary socialist party of Guevarist and Maoist inclination. Therefore, historically it is associated with anti-imperialist politics including hostility to the Bretton Woods Institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.
Since the JVP entered parliamentary politics from 1994 onwards – which was in the geopolitical context of the collapse of the ‘socialist’ bloc in Europe preceded by the crisis of socialism as a credible alternative to capitalism; and the counter-model of China’s market reforms with its integration into global capitalism and encouragement of private capital – the party has shifted to acceptance of a mixed economy, with a leading role for the state in the economy. Recently, it has cited Vietnam as the success story it wishes to replicate.
Although the JVP-NPP are not proponents of neoliberalism, neither is it coherently anti-neoliberal based on its 2024 election campaign and its manifesto and policy papers. Most significantly, the NPP – and reaffirmed by the new president in his first address to the country – has committed itself not to walk away from the ongoing International Monetary Fund programme. He has previously said that the agreement is a fait accompli and now precondition for debt restructuring negotiations with official and private creditors; suggesting that his hands are tied and that the public’s expectation is for the satisfactory completion of both.
Instead, the NPP says it will revisit the IMF’s debt sustainability assessment, which provides the technical rationale for its policy conditionalities, including the harsh austerity measures. The new government proposes changes within the current framework: such as reduction in taxation of the poor and lower middle-class; to maintain some state-owned-enterprises (a sector in which the JVP has a substantial trade union presence) in public ownership, leaving the door open to the sale of non-strategic undertakings; and to boost ‘fiscal consolidation’ through rationalising government expenditure, and increasing export revenue while reducing import expenditure through intensified domestic production, thereby boosting Sri Lanka’s external reserves.
Significantly, it has also said it will conduct a “forensic audit” of the external debt, which suggests that it recognizes that at least some of it is odious and illegitimate, and which citizens and future generations should not be burdened.
It has repeatedly insisted on its fidelity to the IMF agreement and to the ongoing debt restructuring process. This is partly to allay fears among the policy establishment and broad sections of the public, that the breakdown of the IMF agreement will disrupt negotiations with external creditors and spiral into economic instability. It is also to signal that it wants to be seen within and outside Sri Lanka, as ‘responsible’ rather than radical, and pragmatic over dogmatic.
The NPP is also pro-free trade, pro-foreign investment, and pro-export orientation. It will not reverse the expansion of private health and education services but rather promises to regulate it in the interests of users. It balances classic neoliberal tenets, with references to expanding domestic production (that is, import substitution without naming it); opposition to privatisation of state-owned-enterprises; and expanded social programmes and budgetary allocations for vulnerable groups (elders, pensioners, young mothers and women with young children, persons with disabilities and chronic illnesses, etc.).
It has also been careful to sidestep any reference to the bloated military budget that consumes 7% of the national budget, and almost as much as health and education combined. This scandal is politically inviolable because of the national security ideology fostered by the Sinhala nationalist state over almost three decades of war between 1983 and 2009. The NPP’s references to the redistribution of wealth and income are sotto voce, to not discomfort the classes whose approval matter so much to it.
What is not known yet is whether the new government’s stance will crumble when the IMF insists, as it consistently has, that its debt sustainability assessment is methodologically flawless, and that its program designed so perfectly as to be beyond improvement.
How will the new government create the fiscal space for the level of public investment that is required for its spending goals, within the straitjacket of the IMF agreement? Will it reopen recently concluded (but not sealed) negotiations with bilateral and commercial creditors, to get a higher haircut on the debt stock; and overall, a better deal than that made in haste by the previous regime to constrain the incoming government?
Will it say to the IMF and the creditors that its priority is to defend the living standards of those hit hardest by the crisis and the austerity actions, and to grow the economy in ways that benefit the majority; over the IMF’s primary budget surplus and debt-to-GDP ratio targets, and repayment of the bilateral and commercial debt that is due to resume after 2027?
Minority Questions
Ethnic tensions have lessened since the 2022 people’s uprising where there were conscious efforts to present a collective identity of the ‘people’ against a decadent ‘elite’ and their ‘system’ that sows divisions based on ethnicity and faith. The 2024 election campaign has been observed as not only the most peaceful but also where ethnic and religious tensions (which of course remain) were not stoked by the leading candidates.
The NPP is not racist and includes (though not in large number) ethnic minorities – Tamils of North-Eastern origin; Hill-Country Tamils; Muslims (an ethno-religious identity in Sri Lanka) – among its members and in its leadership.
While the NPP manifesto identifies some of the pressing concerns of Tamils in the conflict-affected North and East such as abolition of counter-terrorism legislation and release of political prisoners; truth and justice for the families of the disappeared, land grabs by state institutions, access to public services for Tamil-speakers through effective implementation of the official language law; re-activation of the provincial council system for greater self-rule; socio-economic concerns of Hill-Country Tamils (plantation labourers and their descendants) for housing, land, health and education, many commitments are vague and not time-bound.
The JVP-NPP has courted retired military personnel and the Buddhist clergy; and organized them as its supporters. Both these groups are implacably opposed to investigation and accountability of state security forces for war crimes; as well as reconstitution of the unitary state in the direction of federalism. The new president in pre-election meetings emphasized that the foremost status granted to Buddhism in the current constitution (near de jure status of state religion) is sacrosanct, while reassuring Christians, Hindus, and Muslims that their right to belief will be protected by the state.
The new president promises a new and democratic constitution that will abolish the authoritarian institution of the presidency, as well as devolve greater power to the regions including areas inhabited by national minorities. However, unless he secures a parliamentary majority in the general election that is only a few weeks away, and/or finds allies from other political parties, he lacks the numbers to move decisively in these areas.
His party-alliance and he are acutely aware that their primary electoral base is steeped in Sinhala supremacism since decolonization. This constituency is disinterested at best, and hostile at worst, in constitution-making that is perceived as assigning greater rights and share of state power to national minorities.
The 2022 people’s uprising reverberates in the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. The prospects for progressive change in Sri Lanka rest on the political and social dynamics of the next few months, particularly the awakening from slumber of working people’s struggles and organizations.
