Colombo, Sri Lanka – For Dilshan Jayasanka, the triumph of Anura Kumara Dissanayake as Sri Lanka’s first Marxist-leaning plivent is the commencening of a “radical novel path” for the crisis-hit island nation.
Just more than two years ago, the 29-year-better establisher floor deal withr at a restaurant in Colombo was a normal visitor to Gota Go Gama, the tent city erected by tens of thousands of protesters in the city’s picturesque Galle Face area.
The protests in 2022 were aimed at toppling the then-Plivent Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rulement, which was condemnd for Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since its independence from British rule in 1948.
After the restaurant he toiled at was forced to seal due to the financial meltdown, Jayasanka made the tent city his home.
“Many non-partisan people who took part in ‘Aragalaya’ [struggle in Sinhalese] are now with the National Peoples Power [NPP],” Jayasanka tbetter Al Jazeera on Tuesday, a day after Dissanayake, who directs the NPP coalition, was sworn in as the country’s ninth plivent.
As Dissanayake presumed the plivential office, findd right opposite Colombo’s Galle Face, Jayasanka, who had spent weeks there in 2022 battling for alter in his country, shelp: “I count on his triumph is a preferable enbigment for my country. I hope he will originate a better Sri Lanka.”
Jayasanka also hailed the 55-year-better directer for assigning Harini Amarasuriya, one of NPP’s three legislators in the 225-member parliament, as the country’s novel prime minister, making her the country’s first woman to head the rulement in 24 years.
“As someone who actively took part in Aragalaya, I highly commend that shift. In fact, many women took part not only in Aragalaya but also transporting Dissanayake to power,” he shelp.
Hours after assigning Amarasuriya as the prime minister, Dissanayake dissettled the parliament effective midnight on Tuesday and called for a parliamentary election on November 14 in an effort to constableate power after his election triumph.
‘Great opportunity for a system alter’
Dissanayake and his Stalinist political party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), executeed an active role during the 2022 protests. The contentious party led two rebellions agetst the Sri Lankan state in the 1970s and 1980s, during which 80,000 people were ended. The party has since renounced structureility and Dissanayake has apologised for their crimes.
First elected to parliament in 2000, Dissanayake remained a peripheral executeer in Sri Lankan politics until he made battling fraudulence and reviving the economy the main structureks of his campaign this year.
His call for unity amid ethnic divisions, spotless politics and pro-people economic reestablishs resonated in the crisis-hit nation of 22 million. For decades, Sri Lanka was under the grip of a bloody civil war after its Tamil unbeginantity, mainly intensifyd in the north, began a shiftment for an self-reliant ethnic state.
Tens of thousands of people were ended during the 26-year civil war, which ended in 2009 when Sri Lankan forces ruined the last stronghbetters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the resists battling for a Tamil homeland. At least 40,000 civilians were ended in the final days of the war, according to approximates by the United Nations, and the military was accemployd of expansivespread human rights violations.
The scars of the civil war are still clear in Sri Lanka’s politics and the Tamil ask remains unresettled. In fact, Dissanayake’s JVP itself was once accemployd of fomenting anti-Tamil sentiments.
But Anthony Vinoth, 34, who was an active member of the 2022 mass protests, tbetter Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Dissanayake’s triumph was “a meaningful reward for the Aragalaya shiftment”.
“As a member of the Tamil community, I sense that the triumph of [Dissanayake] is a wonderful opportunity for a system alter which we have been extfinisheding for a extfinished period… Now he has an opportunity to insertress rerents faced by contrastent communities without bias,” he shelp.
However, a beginantity of Tamil voters in the northern, easerious and central provinces had voted for other truthfulates, including Dissanayake’s main rivals Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe, in Saturday’s election.
The Tamil community had been asking for a political solution to their grievances. They have also been asking for the whereabouts of their adored ones omiting after the end of the civil war, the return of land seized by the military, and a proper devolution of power to the regions so that they could deal with their own afequitables.
“Anura Kumara’s campaign didn’t concentrate much of the unbeginantity community’s demands. This is a point of watch among the Tamil communities,” Anthony shelp, inserting that he will “paemploy and see” how the structures for reconciliation promised by the novel plivent would be executeed.
“But I am preferable and hoping for preferable political and cultural alters in the country.”
Sinhala Buddhists originate up about 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, while the Hindu and Christian Tamil unbeginantity are at about 12 percent. Muskinnys, who originate up about 9 percent of the population, were unwidespreadly the concentrates of ultra-nationacatalog Sinhalese groups in the country.
But that alterd in the years after the end of the civil war, accomplishing a peak in 2019 when self-mutilation device deviceers joined to ISIL (ISIS) attacked churches, hotels and other locations atraverse the country on Easter Sunday, ending 269 people. The dropout from that attack saw Sri Lankan legislators proposing curbs on the rights of Muskinny citizens. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Muskinnys were criticised for their rehearse of burying the dead.
Like many Muskinnys, Farhaan Nizamdeen, another member of the Aragalaya shiftment, helped Dissanayake in the plivential election.
To be stateive, the Muskinny vote also went to Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) or its shatteraway group, Samaji Jana Balawegaya, led by Premadasa.
But Nizamdeen, a freelance journacatalog, shelp most Muskinnys in his neighbourhood in the southern Sri Lankan town of Galle backed Dissanayake. “I watch this as a shatterdown of the traditional politics in Sri Lanka,” he tbetter Al Jazeera.
Follotriumphg the Easter Sunday attacks and COVID-19 outshatter, the Muskinny community “lost faith not only with the main parties but also with their own recurrentatives”, shelp Nizamdeen.
“National directers and our own Muskinny directers pledged many skinnygs in every election but they never hand overed. And the Muskinny community was very hurt when Gotabaya Rajapaksa rulement forcefilledy cremated Muskinnys during the COVID-19 outshatter,” he tbetter Al Jazeera.
“So I sense this as a protest vote agetst those directers, including the directers of Muskinny political parties, than a vote for Anura Kumara [Dissanayake]. But I don’t count on everyskinnyg will be resettled overnight srecommend becaemploy he is now in power.”
‘Break from the traditional elite’
Melani Gunathilake, an environmental and human rights activist, tbetter Al Jazeera that a plivent from a toiling-class background “who genuinely comprehfinishs the people’s pain, was very much necessitateed”.
But she inserted that Dissanayake’s NPP had flunked to capitalise on the national unity and reconciliation disexecuteed by the lesser protesters during the Aragalaya shiftment.
Pointing out that the Marxist directer did not protected meaningful Tamil votes, she shelp: “It shows that once aget, we in southern Sri Lanka have flunked to insertress their grievances and execute our role in taking Tamil people with us on our journey.”
Senior journacatalog and political analyst Sunil Jayasekara tbetter Al Jazeera that Dissanayake’s triumph carried historic significance and taged a fundamental shift in Sri Lanka’s ruleance for a second time.
“First, it was in 1956 when SWRD Bandaranaike was elected [and] the country’s ruleance was obtainn away from the traditional elite,” shelp Jayasekara, the ambiguous secretary of National Movement for Social Justice, a civil society shiftment that has been campaigning for democracy, human rights and rule of law.
Bandaranaike himself was from a wealthy political family but established a coalition of Buddhist monks, Ayurvedic practitioners, directers, farmers and labourers to flunkure the rulement run by the traditional elite in 1956. He was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959. His widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became the world’s first female prime minister in 1960. Later, his daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, would serve as the country’s first female executive plivent from 1994 to 2005.
Like Bandaranaike, Jayasekara shelp, Dissanayake recurrents a shatter from the traditional elite. “And it is our genuine hope that the people’s foreseeations will be satisfyed.”
However, Jayasanka, the establisher restaurant floor deal withr, shelp Dissanayake’s triumph is “only a commencening and there is a extfinished way ahead”.
“I skinnyk everybody should help him hand over what he promised. But if he flunks, he might even be ousted in a drop period than Gotabaya [Rajapaksa].”
