Colombo: Sri Lanka is now politically red. Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People Power Alliance (NPP) is the new President of Sri Lanka.
For the first time in Sri Lanka's history, no candidate received an absolute majority of 50 percent of the votes, and the winner was decided by second preference votes.
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Dissanayake secured 42.32 percent votes and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Sajith Premadasa 32.74 percent votes in the first phase of counting. Incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe came third with 17.26 percent votes. Dissanayake led in 15 out of 22 districts in the country. He won 56 lakh votes in the first phase.
Sri Lanka's Presidential Election Act stipulates that in the case of three candidates, no one has a majority and a second consideration vote is counted. According to this, except for the two candidates who got more votes, all the others, including Wickremasinghe, were eliminated from the election. The winner was chosen based on the second consideration votes of those who voted for the candidates who were eliminated.
This is the first presidential election held in 2022 after the popular uprising in Sri Lanka following a severe financial crisis led to the fall of the government and the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The 'Aragalaya' (The 2022 Sri Lankan protests, commonly known as Aragalaya) movement led by Dissanayake was at the helm of the popular agitation of that time. Following the success of the agitation, the popularity of the JVP and Dissanayake had skyrocketed.
Dissanayake has made election promises to the Sri Lankan people that include sweeping corruption, revising privatization, increasing domestic production, and expanding welfare programs.
Dissanayake was born in a working family in Tambutegama, 100 km away from Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. He is the first college educated person from Tambutegama. He graduated in science from the University of Kelaniya and was active in student politics. In 1987, he became a member of the Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). In 1998, Dissanayake joined the JVP Politburo and was first elected to the Sri Lankan Parliament in 2000. In 2004, he formed an alliance with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and became the Minister of Agriculture, but resigned from the ministry in 2005 due to disagreements.
He became the leader of JVP in 2014. Dissanayake contested the presidential election for the first time in 2019. He got only 3 percent of the votes that day.
.jpg)
