{"id":12207,"date":"2024-11-14T13:39:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T07:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=12207"},"modified":"2024-11-14T13:39:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T07:54:13","slug":"sri-lanka-president-eyes-parliament-win-in-snap-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/sri-lanka-president-eyes-parliament-win-in-snap-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka president eyes parliament win in snap election"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sri Lankans were voting in snap parliamentary elections Thursday, with new leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s party expected to secure a mandate to drive through economic reforms.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old hopes to grab two-thirds of the legislature’s 225 seats to press ahead with reforms after the country’s economic meltdown two years ago, when then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted.<\/p>\n

Dissanayake took power after sweeping September elections on a promise to combat graft and recover the country’s stolen assets.<\/p>\n

“I expect a new country, a new government that is friendly towards the people,” said 70-year-old pensioner Milton Gankandage, who was among the first to vote in Colombo’s Wellawatte district.<\/p>\n

“Previous rulers deceived us. We need a new set of rulers who will develop the country.”<\/p>\n

Dissanayake’s JVP, or the People’s Liberation Front, is the main constituent of the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition of professionals seeking to form the next government.<\/p>\n

The NPP held just three seats in the outgoing assembly.<\/p>\n

Dissanayake had been an MP for nearly 25 years and was briefly an agriculture minister.<\/p>\n

But he has distanced himself from traditional politicians accused of leading the country to its worst economic crisis in 2022.<\/p>\n

His JVP party led two insurrections in 1971 and 1987, leading to at least 80,000 deaths, but Dissanayake took power peacefully in elections on September 21.<\/p>\n

University academic Sivalogadasan, who goes by one name, said Dissanayake needed more time to deliver his promises.<\/p>\n

“Some things have started to change… but you can’t expect immediately,” the 52-year-old told AFP.<\/p>\n

– ‘Foregone conclusion’ –<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some 17.1 million people are choosing between 8,800 candidates after a campaign that election monitors say was peaceful.<\/p>\n

Police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa said they were using drones for the first time to monitor an election, with 80,000 police officers deployed. Voting closes at 4:00 pm (1030 GMT).<\/p>\n

Despite previous promises to renegotiate a controversial $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout secured by his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe, Dissanayake has chosen to maintain the agreement with the international lender.<\/p>\n

The country’s main private sector lobby, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, is tacitly supporting Dissanayake and expects him to press ahead with reforms.<\/p>\n

“Continuing reforms… could encourage both investor confidence and fiscal discipline, setting a foundation for sustainable growth,” CCC Secretary Bhuwanekabahu Perera told AFP ahead of voting.<\/p>\n

An IMF delegation is due in Colombo on Thursday to review economic progress before releasing the next tranche of $330 million of the bailout loan.
\nOpposition leader Sajith Premadasa, who had campaigned to take part in a coalition government, vowed in his final campaign rally that he would “put pressure” on Dissanayake to honour promises of tax cuts.<\/p>\n

Poll monitors and analysts note that Thursday’s election had failed to generate the level of enthusiasm — or violence — seen at previous polls.
\n“The opposition is dead,” political analyst Kusal Perera said. “The result of the election is a foregone conclusion.”<\/p>\n

The outgoing parliament was dominated by the party of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa — the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), or the People’s Front — but it has since splintered.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa is not contesting, but his son Namal, a former sports minister, is seeking re-election.<\/p>\n

But private sector executive Damayantha Perera, 49, said he had still voted for a party that was not tipped to win.
\n“I voted according to my conscience,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sri Lankans were voting in snap parliamentary elections Thursday, with new leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s party expected to secure a mandate to drive through economic reforms. The 55-year-old hopes to grab two-thirds of the legislature’s 225 seats to press ahead with reforms after the country’s economic meltdown two years ago, when then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12209,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12207\/revisions\/12209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}