Sajith Premadasa – Artifex.News

In southern Sri Lanka, a chant for change this poll season

admin — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 03:38:18 +0000

Buddhika Dissanayake says she has never had to think so hard before an election. “Earlier, we voted for the party that our family backed for generations, it was an easy choice,” says the middle-aged voter in Kurunegala district, in Sri Lanka’s North Western Province. With hardly a fortnight left for the island nation’s crucial presidential election, she is undecided.

Her dilemma is not uncommon among Sri Lankan voters gearing up for the September 21 contest, in which some 17 million voters will have a say. In the five years between 2019, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President, and now, the country’s political landscape and economic path have altered drastically, making this presidential poll unlike any other the island nation has seen.

In the eight presidential elections preceding this, the country’s two major political camps — the centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the centre-right United National Party (UNP), or their political offshoots — fielded a candidate each. Each of those elections, fought hard by two ideologically opposed contestants, yielded a clear winner.

But this time, voters are navigating a more complex electoral field with three main contestants. Incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who replaced ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa~~through a parliamentary vote, is running as an independent candidate. His two foremost challengers, Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, are in opposition.~~

“We must think hard and choose carefully,” says Ms. Dissanayake, pointing to the daunting task facing the next head of state and government – fixing Sri Lanka’s broken economy.

Kurunegala is a district with high external migration, sending a large number of women for domestic work. The long median dividing a main road in town advertises agencies promising jobs abroad. As a counsellor to migrant workers on their safety, Ms. Dissanayake meets many who are desperately seeking jobs abroad, after the financial crisis and resultant austerity measures plunged their households in poverty.

“Whoever is elected must wipe out corruption that is rampant, and rebuild our economy,” she says. “We can’t let things remain this way”.

Also read: In Sri Lanka, a long and rocky road to economic recovery

When Sri Lanka’s economy crashed in 2022, it triggered a mass uprising that not only protested shortages and power cuts, but emphatically rejected the old, “corrupt” political order they despised. The agitating citizens demanded “system change”.

Chant for change

It is that chant for change that has now evolved as the chief election logic guiding many Sri Lankan voters. “In 2022, when people chased away the Rajapaksas, they showed they have the power. In this election [the first since] we need someone new, someone different. We need change,” says homemaker Chula Mihirani, voicing a popular sentiment.

Local and global economists endlessly debate Sri Lanka’s economic recovery and debt treatment policies, but Ms. Mihirani’s sees the crisis persisting in her home. “The cost of living is unbearable. My son is sitting for his school final exam, we cannot afford private tuition or transport for him.” Thanks to their small paddy field, her family that solely relies on her husband’s earnings as a driver, is not starving although the yield has fallen. “They say things are improving, but for whom? We know that even this respite came because we have suspended repaying our foreign loans. Once that begins, it is going to get even harder,” she said.

Availability versus affordability

The last time economic concerns dominated a national election in Sri Lanka was in 1977, before the raging ethnic conflict took centre stage. Cashing in on voter resentment over then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s policies of import substitution and food rationing, J.R. Jayewardene defeated her in a landslide.

Nearly half a century later, President Wickremesinghe, who is Mr. Jayewardene’s nephew, is seeking a mandate to take forward his government’s ongoing economic reform agenda, shaped by a $ 3-billion International Monetary Fund programme. While his backers credit him for removing fuel queues from the roads and bringing in some fiscal stability, critics point to the painful austerity measures — energy and fuel prices doubled; and indirect taxes soared to 18 % — that especially affect families like Ms. Mihirani’s. The stability that is hailed in Colombo is yet to reach their doorsteps.

On the other hand, supporters of Mr. Wickremesinghe see the availability of essentials as a significant improvement after the shortages of 2022. It is true that finding supplies is not as hard now, but poor families say affording them is.

Given this reality, voters in many such households are unable to see change begin with Mr. Wickremesinghe at the helm. Especially so, since he rose to presidency with the Rajapaksas’ support and ran a government made up of members of their discredited party.

Making a choice

Meanwhile, the once formidable Rajapaksa surname hardly figures in the context of the coming election, signalling voters have little appetite yet for their comeback. This, despite Mahinda Rajapaksa being the sitting MP for Kurunegala, from where he won handsomely in 2020, and his son Namal Rajapaksa running for president.

A total of 38 contestants are in the race, but the real contest is limited to three candidates. Some, particularly in Colombo, see value in continuity if Mr. Wickremesinghe wins, while those decidedly voting for change are divided between Mr. Premadasa and Mr. Dissanayake.

Also read: In Sri Lanka’s hill country, expectations low ahead of presidential polls

“Although Mr. Premadasa comes from an established political party, he has never had the chance to lead the country. With his experience, he will be able to govern well, I think,” says Fathima Rinosha, making a case for a known, even if untested, leader.

Mr. Premadasa is also seen as a preferred candidate in the hill country among Malaiyaha Tamil voters, including on the tea estates. Additionally, southern voters, who have troubling memories of the armed insurrections led by Mr. Dissanayake’s party [the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) with Marxist origins] in 1971 and 1987-89, seem more comfortable with Mr. Premadasa, observes Kurunegala-based women’s rights activist Sumika Perera.

In Focus podcast | Sri Lanka Presidential elections: Will they deliver on the political expectations of the 2022 protesters?

All the same, some voters say Mr. Premadasa does not represent a clean break from the old political system that they are tired of. He was with the UNP before breaking away to lead the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB or United People’s Force). He is the son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, a former President, accused of unleashing state terror on JVP rebels. “Ranil and Sajith are two sides of the same coin,” says K. Wijerathna, a trader in the neighbouring Matale district, seeing them both as part of the political “establishment”.

“We use all our earnings to meet the increased living costs and don’t save a penny. The crisis has left wage labourers, traders, small businessmen, all of us suffering. We need a complete system overhaul to get out of this,” he says, near his store at the Dambulla Economic Centre, a national hub for wholesale and retail distribution of vegetables grown on the island. Mr. Wijerathna had to sell his vehicle. Many others are pawning all their jewellery or taking microfinance loans to cope. “No one can bring about radical changes tomorrow itself, but AKD [as Mr. Dissanayake is referred to] is the only leader who can weed out corruption and bring about change. He is not part of that corrupt political class,” he contends.

Ms. Mihirani is supporting Dissanayake for the same reason. Compared to his rivals from traditional, mainstream political camps, and whose uncle or father were presidents, “AKD” is furthest from Sri Lanka’s political elite. Further, his alliance is campaigning hard through public rallies and on the ground, through pocket meetings. In villages across Sri Lanka, especially in the south and central parts, posters of Mr. Dissanayake pop up frequently out of the road margins. Relatively fewer posters of other main candidates are visible.

S.H. Razi, a public sector worker in neighbouring Anuradhapura district, is not dewy-eyed about what is in store. However, he sees Mr. Dissanayake as the “only candidate” offering “some hope” since the aragalaya, or the people’s struggle of 2022. “Sri Lanka’s youth learnt from India’s farmers and now we saw Bangladesh’s youth learning from their Sri Lankan counterparts,” he laughs. “That uprising gave us hope…we need to build on that”.

Voters’ buoyant endorsement of Mr. Dissanayake as the “symbol of change”, coupled with the lead many local polls give him, have made him a frontrunner in the contest, even as Mr. Premadasa steadily acquires support through poll alliances, especially with representatives of ethnic minorities. However, even voters know it is premature to be certain about anyone’s victory in an electorate as fragmented.

S.R. Karunaratne, a farmer from Kekirawa town in Anuradhapura, is in no hurry to decide, because he does not think any of the candidates have offered “a realistic economic plan” that will make life better for everyone. “In all these years we have relied on imports rather than building an export-oriented economy. Today we are so indebted to the world that even our children won’t be able to finish repaying all this debt,” said Mr. Karunaratne.

Published – September 11, 2024 09:08 am IST

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Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party to back Sajith Premadasa in polls

admin — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 15:26:01 +0000

Sajith Premadasa, leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, party gestures as he arrives at the Election Commission in Rajagiriya to submit his nomination papers for the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for September 21, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), a prominent political party representing Tamils of Sri Lanka’s north and east, on Sunday (September 1) pledged support for presidential aspirant Sajith Premadasa in the September 21 election.

The move, which reflects one significant position within the island nation’s fragmented Tamil polity, comes even as the ITAK’s former coalition partners — along with other political groups — back former parliamentarian and ITAK member P. Ariyanethiran as a “common Tamil candidate” in the presidential race, in which incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mr. Premadasa, and opposition politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake have emerged as key contenders.

Also read: Prominent Tamil party in Sri Lanka seeks governance structure based on federal model

The central committee of ITAK met on Sunday and decided the party will not back Mr. Ariyanethiran, instead announcing its support for Mr. Premadasa, who Tamils voted for in large numbers in the 2019 presidential election, principally to reject Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Further, ITAK sources said the party would request Mr. Ariyanethiran to withdraw from the race, to arrest the apparent divisions within the Tamil electorate.

The ITAK was the chief constituent of the former Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a formidable grouping representing Tamils of the north and east in parliament. The TNA collapsed in recent years amid differences among members. The ITAK, too, is grappling with internal differences that have only aggravated after senior party member and noted Tamil leader R. Sampanthan passed away in July.

Also read: Veteran Sri Lankan Tamil leader Sampanthan passes away

The ITAK’s position on the presidential polls was awaited by many, especially in the wake of party member and legislator S. Shritharan recently endorsing the “common candidate”. His party and parliamentary colleague M.A. Sumanthiran, meanwhile, has termed the idea of fielding a Tamil candidate a “nonsensical one”, arguing that the move would weaken Tamils’ bargaining power with the winning candidate, who will invariably be a contestant from the island’s southern, Sinhala-Buddhist majority.

Tamil voters are faced with different positions of their political leadership, ranging from backing a Tamil candidate, or a preferred Sinhalese leader, or boycotting the elections, as the All Ceylon Tamil Congress has decided to, protesting the many failed promises of past leaders.

Following the ITAK’s announcement, Mr. Premadasa said on social media platform X: “Together, we’ll create a future where everyone wins — a future with no racism, no discrimination and a future built on unity, strength, and shared purpose.”

Mr. Premadasa, who released his manifesto last week, has pledged a new constitution where Sri Lanka’s current political system would be converted to a parliamentary system “with maximum devolution based on the 13th Amendment under one country”. The contentious 13^th Amendment, which assures a measure of power devolution to Sri Lanka’s nine provinces, was passed in 1987 following the Indo-Lanka Accord. It is yet to see full implementation in nearly four decades. Successive Sri Lankan leaders have refused to part especially with land and police powers although many Tamil leaders see the legislation as inadequate for meaningful power-sharing.

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Sri Lanka’s presidential race draws 39 aspirants

admin — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:35:21 +0000

President Ranil Wickremesinghe addresses his supporters after submitting his nomination papers for the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for September 21, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on August 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

COLOMBO

As many as 39 presidential aspirants will contest a crucial poll in Sri Lanka on September 21, the Election Commission said on Thursday (August 15, 2024), after closing nominations.

Incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who rose to the top office through a parliamentary vote during the island nation’s 2022 crisis, is seeking a mandate to take forward his government’s economic reform agenda.

Mr. Wickremesinghe, 75, is contesting as an independent candidate on a “stability” plank, while his main challengers Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, who broke away from Mr. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party following political differences, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who leads the centre-left National People’s Power alliance, are promising change.

More recently, Namal Rajapaksa, son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, entered the race, becoming the first prominent member from the family to face the electorate after a people’s movement dislodged them from power in 2022, when the island experienced its worst financial meltdown in decades. Lawyer Nuwan Bopage, a prominent activist representing a section of the 2022 uprising, is also contesting for the recently formed ‘People’s Struggle Alliance’.

Addressing supporters after filing his nomination President Wickremesinghe said, “Had I not stepped up [in 2022] Sri Lanka would face the crisis now plaguing Bangladesh… I ask for your mandate to continue this work.”

Many Sri Lankans credit Mr. Wickremesinghe for leading the country at a challenging time and setting its economy on a path of recovery. However, his government’s austerity measures, introduced as part of an Internal Monetary Fund-backed programme, have hit most citizens hard. His opponents Mr. Premadasa and Mr. Dissanayake have promised to renegotiate the IMF’s package and alleviate the economic suffering ofSri Lankans.

Nearly 17 million eligible voters will have a say on September 21, when the country goes to the polls for the first time after former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was unseated by citizens in 2022.

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