The National People’s Power (NPP) alliance won a landslide victory in Sri Lanka’s general election on November 14, nearly two months after NPP candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake, known as AKD, romped home in the presidential election. The NPP took nearly 62 percent of the vote and won 159 seats out of 225, defying the predictions of analysts that there would be a hung parliament or at most a bare NPP majority.
In the previous election, four years ago, the alliance won just three seats with less than 4 percent of the vote. Even at a time of sharp political volatility around the world, there can be few if any precedents for such a spectacular turnaround. What will the new government do (or attempt to do) with this impressive mandate?
The NPP is a cross-class electoral front launched five years ago by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, People’s Liberation Front). While the JVP began its life as a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party and still formally subscribes to that ideology, the NPP has positioned itself on the center left. The incoming government’s priorities, according to JVP general secretary Tilvin Silva, are “developing the country, eradicating corruption, and enhancing democracy with accountability.”
The turnout in last week’s election was almost 69 percent, or 11.8 million Sri Lankan voters, ten percentage points lower than in the presidential poll on September 21. Observers have put the lower participation rate down to a number of factors, from voter fatigue to demoralization among supporters of old guard parties and…
Auteur: B. Skanthakumar
