When Mr. Dissanayake, popularly known by his initials “AKD”, entered leftist politics in his student days, becoming the country’s president one day was probably the furthest from his mind. It was the youngster’s hostility to the state and ruling class that led him to the student wing of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP of People’s Liberation Front), a party of Marxist-Leninist origins. He came from a small farmer household that was not politically active. His father was an office aide in the government Survey Department and his mother was a homemaker.

His first cousin, someone he looked up to as his older brother or “aiya”, was already in the party. His cousin was killed during the Ranasinghe Premadasa government’s counter-terror to that of the JVP’s armed insurrection in 1988, its second after the early 1970s. Mr. Dissanayake was 20 at the time. The following year, he saw his parents’ modest home in Anuradhapura in the island’s North Central province torched for association with the party. Even as the JVP’s second uprising against the state saw brutal killings, including of political opponents, ordinary government employees and dissident leftists, the state’s response was many times more lethal. It was this firsthand experience of “state terror” that strengthened Mr. Dissanayake’s resolve to join and remain in the JVP.

Since the late 1980s, the party’s political profile has changed considerably. In its first insurrection in 1971 the JVP had an anti-imperialist and socialist character, aiming to overthrow capitalism and transform political, social and economic institutions. But by the 1980s, the JVP took a decidedly more Sinhala-nationalist turn, fiercely opposing accommodation of Tamil political claims for self-rule and India’s involvement as an arbiter when the country’s ethnic conflict exploded into war, following the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983; in which the party was falsely implicated by the United National Party government of J. R. Jayewardene (uncle to President Ranil Wickremesinghe) and banned for some years. After this revolt was crushed and the party legalised, the JVP’s course shifted in 1994 when the new leadership joined the political mainstream entering parliament. Mr. Dissanayake himself secured a seat in 2000 and served as Minister of Agriculture in the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike between 2004 and 2005. In 2014, Mr. Dissanayake was named leader of the JVP, succeeding Somawansa Amarasinghe.

Speaking of Mr. Dissanayake’s leadership style, fellow MP Vijitha Herath notes: “Our party adopts a consultative approach, it is not leader centric. AKD is a very clear-headed decision maker. He is very good at factoring in multiple views and taking the best decision quickly, in real time.” Besides being long-time comrades, and entering parliament the same year, Mr. Herath and Mr. Dissanayake were also together at the public University of Kelaniya, where Mr. Dissanayake graduated in physical sciences.

“AKD” is also widely regarded as a compelling and informed speaker. His interventions in parliament in clear Sinhala stacked with facts and figures often drew notice. He made a mark in 2018, as a fierce critic of President Maithripala Sirisena’s abrupt sacking of then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that left the country in a crippling, 52-day political crisis. The party moved two No Confidence Motions against Mr. Sirisena and was among the band of petitioners who challenged the move at the Supreme Court. At the time, Mr. Dissanayake argued that the JVP and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), then the main grouping representing Tamils of the north and east, should work together. “The JVP (or People’s Liberation Front) and the TNA represent sections in the country’s south and north that have suffered most due to the actions of the repressive State,” he told The Hindu in November 2018.

At the time, JVP had six MPs in the 225-member House. They were a small, but strong team in Parliament. However, realising that the party’s political fortunes depended on both expanding its base and widening its appeal, Mr. Dissanayake set up the National People’s Power (NPP) Alliance, with over two dozen small political groups, professionals, academics and activists. It marked the beginning of a third force, outside of Sri Lanka’s two traditional political camps led by the centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the centre-right United National Party and their offshoots. Youth from different parts of the country’s Sinhala-majority areas were drawn to the NPP that offered promise of change and new hope for the future.

This momentum prompted Mr. Dissanayake to run for president in 2019, against Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Some, including from liberal and left circles, opposed the idea, seeing it as weakening chief challenger Sajith Premadasa’s chances of defeating Gotabaya. They blamed him for breaking the vote against a “fascist in waiting”. Regardless, Mr. Dissanayake contested and received an underwhelming 3.16 % of the votes cast. The excitement around his campaign with large crowds at political rallies, did not translate into votes. In the 2020 general election the NPP, of which the JVP is the chief constituent, had its parliamentary presence reduced by half. It was left with only three MPs — Mr. Dissanayake, Vijitha Herath and academic Harini Amarasuriya who came in on the “national list”, a proportional representation system where additional seats are allocated to parties based on their national vote share.

The outcomes of the two polls were humiliating for the newly formed NPP, as well as the JVP that had bet on it for its political future. Rivals ridiculed them as the “3 % party”, to show their numeric weakness in front of a government enjoying a super majority. However, they kept up their opposition in parliament, criticising and challenging the president and his cabinet. The debilitating poll results prompted the JVP to use its strength – cadre-based grassroots mobilisation – through relentless political organising; while it also stepped up engaging the Sinhala diaspora in Asia, Europe and North America, through overseas tours facilitated by the JVP’s international branches.

At one level, especially visible in Colombo, the NPP was courting businessmen, artists, professionals and the middle classes who drew comfort from its new social and class breadth and moderated political pitch. While other leftists slammed the NPP’s focus on corrupt individuals, while evading structural issues and abandoning socialist politics, its leadership was unapologetic. “Labels have always given wrong perceptions. Left politics is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. Some people demonise this. That is why we say we are focussed more on working for the majority of our people, rather than on labels,” Mr. Dissanayake told The Hindu in December 2023. What critics see as ideological backtracking, it sees as political flexibility. 

No one saw 2022 coming. A staggering people’s uprising, the toppling of a powerful Executive President, and a clarion call for “system change”. The Janatha Aragalaya or people’s struggle was a headless movement of diverse actors holding conflicting positions, but they shared a frustration with the political establishment. Almost all political actors in opposition including the NPP were sympathetic, but aware that the youth were wary of being politically aligned. The JVP-affiliated student association was part of the agitations bound by a common aim to oust incumbent Gotabaya, seen as culprit-in-chief for people’s everyday suffering, in a testing time of critical shortages, long power cuts, and social and political disarray.

The citizens’ protest wanted the entire Parliament out, signalling they had no faith even in the opposition. There was a clear vacuum. A marginal presence in a tainted Parliament, some years of solid groundwork, and the dissipation of the Aragalaya offered the NPP a chance to catapult into prominence as the tribune of the people. And it jumped at it.

The NPP’s election campaign began early, and their rallies stood out for their impeccable arrangements and huge crowds. In Parliament, Mr. Dissanayake stuck to a formal attire of black trousers and a round-collared pure white shirt. At his rallies, he was often in jeans, and smart casual shirts tucked in with sleeves folded up to the elbow. His speaking style – beginning in a low, composed tone and then building up a compelling narrative against past rulers clicked. To many Sri Lankans, especially younger people, the NPP was the only option that seemed different, and “AKD” was the only candidate furthest from the political elite they despised. The Alliance became their vehicle of hope and Mr. Dissanayake, their symbol of change. An electorate grappling with enormous economic pain and political disillusionment, is bound to have high expectations from the newly elected leader. It is now for Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 55, to meet them.