By Ramindu Perera       

Sri Lanka enters the year 2025 with a new leader and a new political regime. The landslide victory the National Peoples Power (NPP) obtained in the general elections demonstrated the extent of mass resentment against establishment politicians and political parties. With the formation of the new government, it can be said that the political chapter that started with the 2022 mass protests has come to an end.

The delinking process between masses and traditional political forces that started with the protest wave has reached a decisive conjuncture. This delinking can be seen not only in Sinhala constituencies but in Tamil and Muslim electorates as well as evident from the defeat of traditional regionalist and ethno-based parties faced in November.

The resounding mandate the National People’s Power (NPP) received has given President Anura Kumara Dissanayake a historic opportunity to embark on a journey that can bring progressive change. The mandate his party obtained requires a careful decoding to understand the political tasks ahead of the new government, and the challenges lying before them.

Renewal of democracy

The mandate of the NPP comprises three dimensions. The first dimension, which can be considered as the core dimension, consists of the task of political transformation. Changing the political culture was the demand that struck a chord across different social segments during the elections and what earned legitimacy for the NPP.

What does changing political culture actually mean? From what was discussed in the public fora, we can discern the following characteristics. First and foremost, it meant accountability for corruption. Impunity enjoyed by powerful actors – politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen associated with them was one of the themes highlighted during the 2022 protests. Much of President Dissanayake’s electoral rhetoric was centred on holding accountable those who have plundered public wealth with impunity.

Next, a change in political culture also meant slashing the privileged status of public representatives and restoring the link between the representative and the represented. There is a tendency among certain critics to see the whole controversy surrounding the extravagant lifestyles ministers were enjoying and other privileges accorded to them as mere populist campaigning. Such critics actually fail to see the political importance associated with the matter.

The chasm between elected representatives and the people is a real problem Sri Lanka’s democracy has been experiencing. Politics has increasingly become less about popular representation devoid of professional conduct and more about concentrating privileges, wealth and rampant corruption. The excessive privileges of public representatives are a manifestation of this chasm, which certainly should be bridged. Re-defining the role of the public representative should be linked with other reforms in the political system, including reforming the public service, in order to revive the democratic spirit of our polity. What is known as changing political culture in popular terms is actually about rejuvenating the democratic quality of the political system.

A fairer economic transition

The second dimension that underlines the NPP mandate concerns economics. A mapping of the debates on economic policy preceding elections presents us with an interesting scenario. The default in April 2022 was followed by the imposition of a range of austerity measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), associated with debt restructuring negotiations with external creditors.

The Ranil Wickremesinghe administration that engineered the IMF deal had no reservations about the austerity logic and faithfully committed to pursuing a free market agenda. Worse, the government even went beyond IMF prescriptions and anticipated introducing sweeping reforms to sectors such as education and the labour protection system that could have resulted in drastically diminishing the remnants of the welfare state.

On the other hand, the demand to quit the IMF program was raised by certain ultra-left elements. The NPP positioned in a more moderate stance, recognizing the IMF program as a reality to deal with, ruling out a unilateral withdrawal but vowing to renegotiate to ease the impact of austerity measures. In its election manifesto, the NPP also proclaimed to develop an alternative Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) as a premise to bargain with external creditors to obtain a better debt restructuring deal. In the long term, NPP envisioned developing a production-based economy, indicating the necessity to shift from the current finance-dominated model.

Thus, the mandate of the NPP should also be considered a mandate against neo-liberal austerity measures the Wickremesinghe administration was implementing. The mandate is for more social spending and reducing the economic burden on the working class, middle class and the rural poor. The talk about an alternative DSA might appear too late as President Wickremesinghe reached an agreement with bondholders before the presidential election. However, addressing the humanitarian crisis created by the two-year austerity regime and laying the foundations for long-term economic reforms that can enhance production as the basis of the economy are tasks still in order.

The relief package President Dissanayake announced in December includes certain tax reforms and an increase in social spending shows that the government is concerned about this aspect of the mandate. The government has also announced the reversal of certain privatization schemes, notably the privatization of the Ceylon Electricity Board. While these measures are commendable, the new regime faces the challenge of shifting the foundational logic of the economy from neo-liberalism to developmentalism if economic revival is to be sustainable.

Nation building

National unity is perhaps the most unique dimension of the mandate, given the conflicted history of Sri Lankan politics. The NPP is the first political party in post-independent history, which is predominantly southern-based, that succeeded in winning the support of all constituencies across the ethnic divide. National unity was a slogan that President Dissanayake continuously emphasised during his presidential campaign.

Once the presidential election results were out it became clear that the NPP’s message had not reached areas with Tamil and Muslim majority populations. President Dissanayake acknowledged this by stating that he is conscious of the “quantity and composition” of the mandate. However, by November, marking a dramatic shift, the NPP managed to win all minority-majority districts except for Batticaloa.

The NPP’s discourse of racial equality and national unity appears to be somewhat different to the liberal peace-building discourse that was quite influential in academic circles in the last few decades. One crucial difference is worth mentioning. The NPP draws on anti-establishment sentiments that criticize not only the Sinhala political elite but also the Tamil and Muslims. Thus, although power-sharing features in NPP’s programme, that is associated with a radical transformation in the political landscape popular classes of minority communities are expected to capture power from their respective elites.

People in all communities overwhelmingly supporting the NPP presents a historic opportunity to accomplish a task that Sri Lanka failed to achieve since the days of independence. This is the task of nation-building. President Dissanayake won in the North and East not because the minorities were not conscious of the specific questions that they encountered. A political solution to the national question is still on the agenda. People in the North demand de-militarisation, the right to return and regional autonomy.

But they have decided to turn away from traditional ethno-nationalist parties and give NPP still a Southern-based party but one that does not speak the language of ethno-nationalism, a chance to address their concerns. If there can be a meaningful interaction on this front in the next few years, a historic pathway has opened up to foster fraternal relations among different ethnic communities in the country and to work towards constructing a modern Sri Lankan identity based on the principles of equality and diversity.

2025: whither politics?

Democratic rejuvenation, economic revival with social justice and national unity are the foundations of the election mandate. These are the political aspirations that underline the 2024 political moment. Needless to say, the NPP will encounter many obstacles in pursuing its agenda. While the opposition seems to have weakened following the electoral defeat, it seems that there can be a possible re-organization of oppositional forces along two lines.

Firstly, the traditional centre-right will aim for a comeback, possibly under the patronage of former President Ranil Wickremesinghe. Although the main opposition party SJB is numerically stronger, it does not seem to have the moral and intellectual ability to lead the centre-right bloc at the moment. Domestic and international pressures are very likely to demand a unification between SJB and Wickremesinghe loyalists to form a unified centre right against President Dissanayake’s presidency. Sinhala ethno-nationalism constitutes the other potential axis. Dilith Jayaweera entering parliament might be the dawn of a new chapter for ultra-nationalist Sinhala politics.

Politics in 2025 is likely to become a contestation for power between these different political tendencies. Whether President Dissanayake and his party will succeed in converting its electoral victory towards constructing a new political consensus depends on the outcomes, compromises and defeats that would emerge out of this contest.

-This article was originally featured on groundviews.org