As per the latest opinion polls in Sri Lanka, Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the left leaning National People’s Power was leading in the first presidential elections held since the 2022 political and economic crisis faced by the country against his nearest centrist rival Sajith Premdasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya.
According to the Institute of Health Policy, Sri Lanka’s leading survey agency, Dissanayake has increased his lead in voting preference to 48% from the last survey in which he was preferred by 36% of the participants. Sajith’s support slipped to 25% from 32% in August. Incumbent president Ranil Wikremesinghe is trailing on the third position with a voter preference of around 20%. The survey has a 2 to 3% margin of error.
Sri Lankans will be voting for a new president on Saturday, September 21. According to the Election Commission of Sri Lanka a total of 38 candidates have registered for the presidential elections.
Apart from the incumbent president Wickremesinghe (75) who is contesting as an independent, Sajith (57) and Dissanayake (55) other major candidates include Namal Rajapaksa (38) from the former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).
Other major candidates include a joint Tamil candidate P. Ariyanethran. However, the race for the presidency has traditionally been confined to the candidates backed by major parties in the country.
Though he has contested the elections twice before in 1988 and 2005 and failed to win, Wickremesinghe was able to get support of more than 30 parties, small and big including a breakaway of the SLPP this time and was considered as the frontrunner for the presidency before the beginning of the campaign in August.
An earlier survey conducted by the IHP in June had put Sajith as leading candidate with a vote preference of 43% followed by Dissanayake’s 30% and Wickremesinghe’s 20%. June’s IHP surveys had indicated a trend of surge in support of Wickremesinghe from merely 10% at the beginning of the year to over 20% and decline in Dissanayake’s popularity, who was leading the race earlier.
Sajith was the runner up in the last presidential elections in 2019 won by Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He got over 42% of the popular vote.
September 21 would be the first major political event in the country after the fall of Rajapaksa’s in 2022 in a popular uprising commonly known as Aragalaya (Struggle).
Wickremesinghe, six time prime minister, was elected as president with the support of SLPP days after the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country on July 15, 2022 and later resigned in the wake of months long popular protests against the government at the time.
The issues raised during Aragalaya would dominate the campaign
Sri Lankan politics was completely controlled by the Rajapaksa family prior to the start of Aragalaya (Struggle) in March 2022. Brothers Gotabaya and Mahida were president and prime minister respectively. Two brothers, Basil and Chamal were the country’s finance and irrigation ministers. Chamal and Basil were the first to resign in April following the outbreak of popular protests.
The protests were triggered by the hardships faced by common Sri Lankans as a result of economic mismanagement by the Rajapaksa dominated administration. The COVID-19 outbreak intensified the impact of that mismanagement with millions of Sri Lankans unable to get enough food, medicine or fuel for weeks. Protesters also accused the Rajapaksa family of abusing power and indulging in corruption while the country was reeling under an economic crisis.
Following weeks of protests, SLPP supported the appointment of Wickremesinghe as prime minister despite his own United National Party (UNP) having just one MP in the parliament at the time. In fact the UNP had failed to win a single seat in the national elections held in 2020. Wickremesinghe entered as the sole MP of UNP by nomination through the national list in June 2021.
Some analysts believe that the Rajapaska regime saw Wickremesinghe as a better candidate for the prime minister given his links with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and that he would be able to secure a bailout loan from the IMF at the critical juncture as a way to revive the country’s failed economy and save the government from falling under popular pressure.
Nevertheless, popular protests refused to die down even after Wickremesinghe was appointed as the PM. Gotabaya had to flee the country and Wickremesinghe was elevated to acting president. He was later elected president to serve Gotabaya’s remaining term by the parliament dominated by the SLPP.
Wickremesinghe retained power despite protests continuing for next several months by using massive force and emergency powers. Due to credits extended by countries such as China, India and Japan the situation on the economic front has relatively improved. The economy has been able to come out of a negative growth trajectory this year and inflation, which was over 70% in 2022 has moderated now.
However, the problems faced by the majority of Sri Lankans remain by and large the same.
The inability of common masses in Sri Lanka to fulfill their basic needs due to lack of income and absence of state support is expected to play a significant role in the September 21 elections.
A large number of Sri Lankans are skeptical about the austerity and taxation measures attached to the IMF loan conditions at a time when they need greater state support. This could be one of the reasons they are attracted to campaigns led by Dissanayake or Sajith as both of them have declared they would restructure the loan terms if elected.
The issue of corruption among the ruling establishment was never addressed under Wickremesinghe’s rule despite the country’s supreme court ruling that Gotabaya, his brother Mahida and 13 others were responsible for the financial crisis of 2022.
Two years later, the Rajapaksa family is back in the political fray with Mahida’s son Namal contesting for the president’s post. Dissanayake, who is not seen as part of the establishment, has focused on addressing the issue.
Meera Srinivasan, a journalist covering Sri Lanka for decades, claims Aragalaya was a movement for systematic change in the country which has been failed by the Wickremesinghe administration and “mismanagement and corruption reign in power” even now. This perception may play a decisive role during the upcoming elections.