Sri Lanka leftists win supermajority in rebuke of old guard

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s coalition won a historic parliamentary supermajority in the country’s election, underscoring the depth of the support for the leftist leader who pledges to combat corruption and change the terms of an unpopular International Monetary Fund bailout.

His National People’s Power bloc got 159 parliament seats, more than two-thirds of the 225 total that allows it to amend the constitution, according to the Election Commission of Sri Lanka. Rival Sajith Premadasa’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya party had 40 seats.

“Thank you to all who voted for a renaissance!” Dissanayake said on X.

Dissanayake, 55, called for the early poll after his victory in the island nation’s presidential election on Sept. 21, a rebuke of Sri Lanka’s political elite following a historic debt default in 2022. A $3 billion IMF bailout the next year came with tough austerity measures that Dissanayake’s party said increased the economic burden on the poor.

Top of the new president’s agenda is rewriting parts of the deal with the IMF. Dissanayake has said he’s committed to continuing the funding facility struck with the Washington-based lender but wants to amend unpopular austerity measures and reduce taxes.

Dissanayake’s coalition held just three of the 225 seats in the dissolved legislature. There have been no opinion polls on voters’ preferences, but political analysts expected the NPP to comfortably win a parliament majority and target a supermajority.

“Any party getting two-thirds majority is very dangerous,” said Bhavani Fonseka, senior researcher and lawyer at the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives. “As we have seen in the past, the executive president could move forward with reforms which are detrimental to democracy and in that a strong opposition is needed.”

Dissanayake, however, has said he would abolish Sri Lanka’s executive presidency and replace it with a system led by a prime minister more beholden to parliament. This requires a supermajority in parliament.

“We have to be responsible when we use this because leaders have misused it in the past,” Tilvin Silva, general secretary of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party that leads the NPP, said at a briefing in Colombo. “We have to revive a fallen economy and help people to live with dignity. We will use this mandate for that.”

Sri Lanka’s main stock index, sovereign bonds and its currency, the rupee, have gained since Dissanayake’s presidential win in September, on investor expectation that the government will strike new terms with the IMF.

The nation’s dollar bonds inched higher on Friday. Bonds maturing in March 2029 rose to 63.75 cents on the dollar, trading near the highest since 2021.

Dissanayake’s victory followed years of political turmoil in Sri Lanka, after a debt default and economic meltdown in 2022 led to riots in Colombo and the ouster of populist President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa’s nephew Namal, who earlier contested the presidency, congratulated Dissanayake and his coalition. His party, which stormed to a landslide win in 2020 on a campaign of strengthening security after the Easter bombing attacks, came away this time with just three seats.

“This marks a new path and a fresh approach chosen by the people,” Namal said on X.

The NPP started out as a violent Marxist movement in the 1970s and 1980s, but has since renounced violence and run on a broadly leftist political platform.

Turnout for the parliamentary elections was at the lowest in 14 years, with observers saying the opposition parties didn’t come up with a strong campaign and were mostly fragmented.

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With assistance from Karl Lester M. Yap.