Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake has taken office as Sri Lanka’s president shortly after winning the country’s election.
Dissanayake, who was sworn in on Monday after winning Saturday’s polls, has inherited the top job in a nation battered by austerity measures imposed as a part of a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
These austerity measures — hikes in income taxes and electricity prices — were introduced under outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Wickremesinghe took over as leader after his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted in 2022 following the country’s economic collapse and amid mass public protests that Dissanayake and his political party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), were part of.
In his inauguration speech, Dissanayake pledged “cleaner” politics. “People have called for a different political culture,” he said.
“I am ready to commit to that change.”
His presidential campaign was built on the promise of fighting corruption.
Dissanayake has also been critical of Wickremesinghe’s $2.9bn bailout deal with the IMF.
Now in power, he faces questions over how he might navigate the island nation’s economic challenges at a time when it is deeply fractured.
While campaigning, the NPP argued that the current terms of the IMF programme are not favourable to the disadvantaged poor and working classes, Rajni Gamage, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, told Al Jazeera.
Cuts in social welfare schemes and increases in taxes made by Wickremesinghe’s government as a result of the IMF deal have hurt economically weaker sections of society the most.
“They [the NPP] feel like the deal has been quite unfair and that it favours the more wealthier sections more,” Gamage said.
Dissanayake said he will renegotiate the IMF bailout plan to make the austerity measures more bearable.
Even though he won the election, Dissanayake did not get the votes of many Tamils, who make up 12 percent of the population of 22 million and are the country’s largest ethnic minority.
Still, Dissanayake made a call for unity in his inauguration speech.
“There are things I know and things I don’t know, but I will seek the best advice and do my best. For that, I need the support of everyone,” he said.
Tamil leaders have expressed optimism that Dissanayake will steer clear of sectarian politics.
An actual socialist party. Very exciting.
Let’s hope they put protections in place as quick as possible, because if they’re genuinely planning to improve the working-class lives in Sri Lanka, there’s a US-backed coup incoming like they did to Chile when Allende was elected.