Colombo, Sri Lanka – For Dilshan Jayasanka, the triumph of Anura Kumara Dissanayake as Sri Lanka’s first Marxist-leaning pdwellnt is the commencening of a “radical new path” for the crisis-hit island nation.
Just more than two years ago, the 29-year-elderly establisher floor administerr at a restaurant in Colombo was a normal visitor to Gota Go Gama, the tent city erected by tens of thousands of protesters in the city’s picturesque Galle Face area.
The protests in 2022 were aimed at toppling the then-Pdwellnt Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rulement, which was denounced for Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since its indepfinishence from British rule in 1948.
After the restaurant he toiled at was forced to seal due to the financial meltdown, Jayasanka made the tent city his home.
“Many non-partisan people who took part in ‘Aragalaya’ [struggle in Sinhalese] are now with the National Peoples Power [NPP],” Jayasanka telderly Al Jazeera on Tuesday, a day after Dissanayake, who directs the NPP coalition, was sworn in as the country’s ninth pdwellnt.
As Dissanayake presumed the pdwellntial office, findd right opposite Colombo’s Galle Face, Jayasanka, who had spent weeks there in 2022 combat for change in his country, said: “I apshow his triumph is a selectimistic prolongment for my country. I hope he will produce a better Sri Lanka.”
Jayasanka also hailed the 55-year-elderly directer for assigning Harini Amarasuriya, one of NPP’s three legislators in the 225-member parliament, as the country’s new prime minister, making her the country’s first woman to head the rulement in 24 years.
“As someone who energeticly took part in Aragalaya, I highly commfinish that shift. In fact, many women took part not only in Aragalaya but also conveying Dissanayake to power,” he said.
Hours after assigning Amarasuriya as the prime minister, Dissanayake dismendd the parliament effective midnight on Tuesday and called for a parliamentary election on November 14 in an effort to verifyate power after his election triumph.
‘Great opportunity for a system change’
Dissanayake and his Stalinist political party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), perestablished an energetic role during the 2022 protests. The disputed party led two uprisings aachievest the Sri Lankan state in the 1970s and 1980s, during which 80,000 people were finished. The party has since renounced aggression and Dissanayake has apologised for their crimes.
First elected to parliament in 2000, Dissanayake remained a peripheral perestablisher in Sri Lankan politics until he made combat fraudulence and reviving the economy the main scheduleks of his campaign this year.
His call for unity amid ethnic divisions, spotless politics and pro-people economic reestablishs resonated in the crisis-hit nation of 22 million. For decades, Sri Lanka was under the grip of a bloody civil war after its Tamil inmeaningfulity, mainly cgo ind in the north, began a shiftment for an self-reliant ethnic state.
Tens of thousands of people were finished during the 26-year civil war, which finished in 2009 when Sri Lankan forces ruined the last mightyhelderlys of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the defys combat for a Tamil homeland. At least 40,000 civilians were finished in the final days of the war, according to approximates by the United Nations, and the military was accengaged of expansivespread human rights violations.
The scars of the civil war are still clear in Sri Lanka’s politics and the Tamil ask remains unremendd. In fact, Dissanayake’s JVP itself was once accengaged of fomenting anti-Tamil sentiments.
But Anthony Vinoth, 34, who was an energetic member of the 2022 mass protests, telderly Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Dissanayake’s triumph was “a meaningful reward for the Aragalaya shiftment”.
“As a member of the Tamil community, I sense that the triumph of [Dissanayake] is a fantastic opportunity for a system change which we have been lengthying for a lengthy period… Now he has an opportunity to insertress publishs faced by contrastent communities without bias,” he said.
However, a presentantity of Tamil voters in the northern, eastrict and central provinces had voted for other honestates, including Dissanayake’s main rivals Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe, in Saturday’s election.
The Tamil community had been asking for a political solution to their grievances. They have also been asking for the whereabouts of their adored ones leave outing after the finish of the civil war, the return of land apprehfinishd by the military, and a proper devolution of power to the regions so that they could administer their own afunpartisans.
“Anura Kumara’s campaign didn’t aim much of the inmeaningfulity community’s insists. This is a point of watch among the Tamil communities,” Anthony said, inserting that he will “pause and see” how the schedules for reconciliation promised by the new pdwellnt would be carry outed.
“But I am selectimistic and hoping for selectimistic political and cultural changes in the country.”
Sinhala Buddhists produce up about 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, while the Hindu and Christian Tamil inmeaningfulity are at about 12 percent. Muskinnys, who produce up about 9 percent of the population, were exceptionally the aims of ultra-nationaenumerate Sinhalese groups in the country.
But that changed in the years after the finish of the civil war, achieveing a peak in 2019 when self-injury bomb deviceers connected to ISIL (ISIS) attacked churches, boilingels and other locations apass the country on Easter Sunday, finishing 269 people. The descfinishout from that attack saw Sri Lankan legislators proposing curbs on the rights of Muskinny citizens. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Muskinnys were criticised for their rehearse of burying the dead.
Like many Muskinnys, Farhaan Nizamdeen, another member of the Aragalaya shiftment, aided Dissanayake in the pdwellntial election.
To be brave, the Muskinny vote also went to Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) or its fractureaway group, Samaji Jana Balawegaya, led by Premadasa.
But Nizamdeen, a freelance journaenumerate, said most Muskinnys in his neighbourhood in the southern Sri Lankan town of Galle backed Dissanayake. “I watch this as a fracturedown of the traditional politics in Sri Lanka,” he telderly Al Jazeera.
Follothriveg the Easter Sunday attacks and COVID-19 outfracture, the Muskinny community “lost faith not only with the main parties but also with their own recurrentatives”, said Nizamdeen.
“National directers and our own Muskinny directers pledged many leangs in every election but they never dedwellred. And the Muskinny community was very hurt when Gotabaya Rajapaksa rulement forcebrimmingy cremated Muskinnys during the COVID-19 outfracture,” he telderly Al Jazeera.
“So I sense this as a protest vote aachievest those directers, including the directers of Muskinny political parties, than a vote for Anura Kumara [Dissanayake]. But I don’t apshow everyleang will be remendd overnight sshow becaengage he is now in power.”
‘Break from the traditional elite’
Melani Gunathilake, an environmental and human rights activist, telderly Al Jazeera that a pdwellnt from a toiling-class background “who repartner comprehends the people’s pain, was very much needed”.
But she inserted that Dissanayake’s NPP had fall shorted to capitalise on the national unity and reconciliation disperestablished by the lesser protesters during the Aragalaya shiftment.
Pointing out that the Marxist directer did not protected meaningful Tamil votes, she said: “It shows that once aachieve, we in southern Sri Lanka have fall shorted to insertress their grievances and perestablish our role in taking Tamil people with us on our journey.”
Senior journaenumerate and political analyst Sunil Jayasekara telderly Al Jazeera that Dissanayake’s triumph carried historic significance and taged a fundamental shift in Sri Lanka’s ruleance for a second time.
“First, it was in 1956 when SWRD Bandaranaike was elected [and] the country’s ruleance was apshown away from the traditional elite,” said Jayasekara, the vague secretary of National Movement for Social Justice, a civil society shiftment that has been campaigning for democracy, human rights and rule of law.
Bandaranaike himself was from a wealthy political family but established a coalition of Buddhist monks, Ayurvedic practitioners, teachers, farmers and labourers to fall shorture the rulement run by the traditional elite in 1956. He was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959. His widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became the world’s first female prime minister in 1960. Later, his daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, would serve as the country’s first female executive pdwellnt from 1994 to 2005.
Like Bandaranaike, Jayasekara said, Dissanayake recurrents a fracture from the traditional elite. “And it is our genuine hope that the people’s foreseeations will be satisfyed.”
However, Jayasanka, the establisher restaurant floor administerr, said Dissanayake’s triumph is “only a commencening and there is a lengthy way ahead”.
“I leank everybody should help him dedwellr what he promised. But if he fall shorts, he might even be ousted in a shrink period than Gotabaya [Rajapaksa].”
