Sweeping Win For Sri Lankan President's Party Seen As Vote For Unity

By Shakir Husain

NEW DELHI, Nov 15 (Bernama) -- The landslide victory of Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's party in Thursday's parliamentary election is being hailed as a vote for national unity.

The National People's Power (NPP) leftist coalition, or Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB), led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, secured big wins not only in the majority Sinhalese area but also in the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern regions.

Dissanayake, 55, who became president in September, dissolved the 225-member legislature in which his party had only three seats.

The fresh mandate gives the NPP 159 parliamentary seats, while the opposition alliance Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) of Sajith Premadasa, backed by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, is a distant second with 40 seats, election results showed on Friday.

"Thank you to all who voted for a renaissance!" Dissanayake said in a post on X.

The sweeping parliamentary victory would enable Dissanayake to pursue his policies more vigorously in the nation of 22 million.

One of his main challenges is to lead Sri Lanka's recovery from the 2022 economic devastation, which led to two presidential resignations within three months.

The electoral outcome has "delivered a powerful and unifying message from the people", former foreign minister Ali Sabry said, adding that he sees it as "a call for solidarity, mutual understanding, and reconciliation".

"This moment is an opportunity for all Sri Lankans, including those in the diaspora, to reflect deeply on the new realities and sentiments that define the nation today," he said in a social media post.

Sri Lanka suffered an ethnic Tamil insurgency and civil war between 1983 and 2009.

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party of former presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa suffered the humiliation of being reduced to three seats from 145 in the outgoing Parliament.

The Rajapaksas were widely blamed for Sri Lanka's economic disaster two years ago during which the country suffered a foreign exchange crisis and people struggled for basic food, medicine and fuel supplies.

Having defaulted on its foreign debt, Sri Lanka was forced to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for bailout funds.

The NPP secured 61.5 per cent of the 11.8 million votes cast in Thursday's election in which 17 million Sri Lankans were eligible to vote.

Its victory in the Tamil-dominated north has surprised many observers, who see it as positive development for overcoming regional divisions.

Dissanayake is "embraced by all Sri Lankans, regardless of religion or ethnicity", said Bimal Rathnayake, an NPP leader.

Apart from his push for economic changes to benefit average Sri Lankans, Dissanayake has promised to abolish the executive presidency system.

Now the president has the required strength in Parliament to deliver on the promised reforms.

-- BERNAMA