Who is Anura Kumara Dissanayake? Sri Lanka's new President

Anura Kumara Dissanayake has won the Sri Lanka's Presidential election.

Sri Lanka's election commission declared him as the country's president-elect on Sunday after a vote coloured by discontent over the island nation's response to an unprecedented financial crisis.

The 55-year-old leader of the People's Liberation Front won the presidency with 42.31 percent of the vote in Saturday's election, the commission said.

Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa took second place with 32.76 percent.

Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe who took office at the peak of the 2022 economic collapse and imposed tough austerity policies per the terms of an IMF bailout took a distant third with 17.27 percent.

Dissanayaka will be sworn in on Monday morning at the President Secretariat in Colombo, election commission officials said.

Dissanayaka's once-marginal Marxist party led two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s that left more than 80,000 people dead.

But Sri Lanka's crisis has proven an opportunity for Dissanayaka, who has seen a surge of support based on his pledge to change the island's "corrupt" political culture.

"Our country needs a new political culture," he said after casting his ballot on Saturday.

No victory rallies or celebrations are permitted until a week after the final results are declared.

Humble beginnings

In 2019 when Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or JVP was a fringe Marxist party in Sri Lanka and had won just 3 percent of the total vote share.

Today, its leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) has won the Presidency.

Born into a working-class family in Thambuttegama, Dissanayake rose to prominence as a student leader in the 1990s espousing the idea of communism in the island country.

By 1998, he had joined the JVP’s decision-making body, the politburo, as reported by Indian Express.

His first break came in the year 2000 when he won a Parliamentary seat.

A few years later, he was made a Cabinet minister in President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's government. A year later he resigned from his post.

Dissanayaka's party sought to reassure India that any administration he led would not be caught up in the geopolitical rivalry between its northern neighbour and China, the country's largest lender.

New Delhi has expressed concerns over what it sees as Beijing's growing influence in Sri Lanka, which sits on vital shipping lanes crisscrossing the Indian Ocean.

"Sri Lankan territory will not be used against any other nation," a senior party leader told AFP.

"We are fully aware of the geopolitical situation in our region, but we will not participate."

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Source: TRT