By Meera Srinivasan

Buddhika Dissanayake says she has never had to think so hard before an election. “Earlier, we voted for the party that our family backed for generations, it was an easy choice,” says the middle-aged voter in Kurunegala district, in Sri Lanka’s North Western Province. With hardly a fortnight left for the island nation’s crucial presidential election, she is undecided.

Her dilemma is not uncommon among Sri Lankan voters gearing up for the September 21 contest, in which some 17 million voters will have a say. In the five years since 2019, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President, the country’s political landscape and economic path have altered drastically, making this presidential poll unlike any other island nation has seen.

In the eight presidential elections preceding this, the country’s two major political camps — the centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the centre-right United National Party (UNP), or their political offshoots — fielded a candidate each. Each of those elections, fought hard by two ideologically opposed contestants, yielded a clear winner.

But this time, voters are navigating a more complex electoral field with three main contestants. Incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who replaced ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa through a parliamentary vote, is running as an independent candidate. His two foremost challengers, Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, are in opposition.

“We must think hard and choose carefully,” says Dissanayake, pointing to the daunting task facing the next head of state and government – fixing Sri Lanka’s broken economy.

Kurunegala is a district with high external migration, sending a large number of women for domestic work. The long median dividing a main road in town advertises agencies promising jobs abroad. As a counsellor to migrant workers on their safety, Dissanayake meets many who are desperately seeking jobs abroad, after the financial crisis and resultant austerity measures plunged their households in poverty.

“Whoever is elected must wipe out corruption that is rampant, and rebuild our economy,” she says. “We can’t let things remain this way”.

When Sri Lanka’s economy crashed in 2022, it triggered a mass uprising that not only protested shortages and power cuts but emphatically rejected the old, “corrupt” political order they despised. The agitating citizens demanded “system change”.

Chant for change

It is that chant for change that has now evolved as the chief election logic guiding many Sri Lankan voters.

“In 2022, when people chased away the Rajapaksas, they showed they have the power. In this election [the first since], we need someone new, someone different. We need change,” says homemaker Chula Mihirani, voicing a popular sentiment.

Local and global economists endlessly debate Sri Lanka’s economic recovery and debt treatment policies, but Mihirani sees the crisis persisting in her home.

“The cost of living is unbearable. My son is sitting for his school final exam, we cannot afford private tuition or transport for him,” she says. Thanks to their small paddy field, her family that solely relies on her husband’s earnings as a driver, is not starving although the yield has fallen.

“They say things are improving, but for whom? We know that even this respite came because we have suspended repaying our foreign loans. Once that begins, it is going to get even harder,” she adds.

Availability versus affordability

The last time economic concerns dominated a national election in Sri Lanka was in 1977 before the raging ethnic conflict took centre stage. Cashing in on voter resentment over then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s policies of import substitution and food rationing, J.R. Jayewardene defeated her in a landslide.

Nearly half a century later, President Wickremesinghe, who is Jayewardene’s nephew, is seeking a mandate to take forward his government’s ongoing economic reform agenda, shaped by a $ 3-billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program. While his backers credit him for removing fuel queues from the roads and bringing in some fiscal stability, critics point to the painful austerity measures — energy and fuel prices doubled; and indirect taxes soared to 18% — which especially affect families like Mihirani’s. The stability that is hailed in Colombo is yet to reach their doorsteps.

On the other hand, supporters of  Wickremesinghe see the availability of essentials as a significant improvement after the shortages of 2022. It is true that finding supplies is not as hard now, but poor families say affording them is.

Given this reality, voters in many such households are unable to see change begin with Wickremesinghe at the helm. Especially so, since he rose to the presidency with the Rajapaksas’ support and ran a government made up of members of their discredited party.

Making a choice

Meanwhile, the once formidable Rajapaksa surname hardly figures in the context of the coming election, signalling voters have little appetite yet for their comeback. This is despite Mahinda Rajapaksa being the sitting MP for Kurunegala, from where he won handsomely in 2020, and his son Namal Rajapaksa running for president.

A total of 38 contestants are in the race, but the real contest is limited to three candidates. Some, particularly in Colombo, see value in continuity if Wickremesinghe wins, while those decidedly voting for change are divided between Premadasa and  Dissanayake.

“Although Mr. Premadasa comes from an established political party, he has never had the chance to lead the country. With his experience, he will be able to govern well, I think,” says Fathima Rinosha, making a case for a known, even if untested, leader.

. Premadasa is also seen as a preferred candidate in the hill country among Malaiyaha Tamil voters, including on the tea estates. Additionally, southern voters, who have troubling memories of the armed insurrections led by Dissanayake’s party [the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) with Marxist origins] in 1971 and 1987-89, seem more comfortable with Premadasa, observes Kurunegala-based women’s rights activist Sumika Perera.

All the same, some voters say Premadasa does not represent a clean break from the old political system that they are tired of. He was with the UNP before breaking away to lead the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB or United People’s Force). He is the son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, a former President, accused of unleashing state terror on JVP rebels.

“Ranil and Sajith are two sides of the same coin,” says K. Wijerathna, a trader in the neighbouring Matale district, seeing them both as part of the political “establishment”.

“We use all our earnings to meet the increased living costs and don’t save a penny. The crisis has left wage labourers, traders, small businessmen, and all of us suffering. We need a complete system overhaul to get out of this,” he says, near his store at the Dambulla Economic Centre, a national hub for wholesale and retail distribution of vegetables grown on the island. Mr. Wijerathna had to sell his vehicle. Many others are pawning all their jewellery or taking microfinance loans to cope.

“No one can bring about radical changes tomorrow itself, but AKD [as Dissanayake is referred to] is the only leader who can weed out corruption and bring about change. He is not part of that corrupt political class,” he contends.

Mihirani is supporting Dissanayake for the same reason. Compared to his rivals from traditional, mainstream political camps, and whose uncle or father were presidents, “AKD” is furthest from Sri Lanka’s political elite. Further, his alliance is campaigning hard through public rallies and on the ground, through pocket meetings. In villages across Sri Lanka, especially in the south and central parts, posters of Dissanayake pop up frequently out of the road margins. Relatively fewer posters of other main candidates are visible.

S.H. Razi, a public sector worker in neighbouring Anuradhapura district, is not dewy-eyed about what is in store. However, he sees  Dissanayake as the “only candidate” offering “some hope” since the aragalaya, or the people’s struggle of 2022.

“Sri Lanka’s youth learnt from India’s farmers and now we saw Bangladesh’s youth learning from their Sri Lankan counterparts,” he says with a laugh. “That uprising gave us hope…we need to build on that”.

Supporters’ buoyant endorsement of  Dissanayake as the “symbol of change”, coupled with the lead many local polls give him, have made him a frontrunner in the contest, even as Premadasa steadily acquires support through poll alliances, especially with representatives of ethnic minorities. However, even voters know it is premature to be certain about anyone’s victory in an electorate as fragmented.

S.R. Karunaratne, a farmer from Kekirawa town in Anuradhapura, is in no hurry to decide because he does not think any of the candidates have offered “a realistic economic plan” that will make life better for everyone.

“In all these years, we have relied on imports rather than building an export-oriented economy. Today we are so indebted to the world that even our children won’t be able to finish repaying all this debt,” says. Karunaratne.

-The Hindu