Sri Lanka’s second-round count confirms Dissanayake victory after voters reject old guard

# Sri Lanka’s second-round count confirms Dissanayake victory after voters reject old guard

IO Digest Desk

Sri Lanka’s election officials began a second round of vote counting on September 22, 2024 as Marxist lawmaker Anura Kumara Dissanayake went on to secure the presidency in a contest shaped by the country’s deep economic damage and political upheaval. AP reported that Dissanayake ultimately won after voters rejected the old political guard blamed for driving the island nation into crisis.

The result was significant not only because of who won, but because of the conditions surrounding the vote. The country was still trying to recover from what AP described as the worst economic crisis in its history, and the election was widely treated as a referendum on how Sri Lanka had managed debt, inflation and public hardship. Two years earlier, mass protests had driven then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa from office.

Dissanayake, who heads the National People’s Power coalition, secured 5,740,179 votes, ahead of opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had taken over after the economy collapsed. AP said Wickremesinghe congratulated Dissanayake and said he hoped the incoming leader would carry forward the recovery. The election therefore ended with a clear transfer of political momentum away from the old establishment and toward a candidate who had built support around anti-elite politics.

The result also carried economic implications. Wickremesinghe had spent his time in office pushing through debt restructuring under an International Monetary Fund bailout after Sri Lanka defaulted in 2022. Dissanayake said during the campaign that he would renegotiate the IMF deal to make austerity less painful. AP noted that Wickremesinghe had warned any major changes could delay a crucial tranche of nearly $3 billion.

That tension between relief and restraint sits at the center of the new government’s challenge. The country has already made progress on inflation, reserves and currency stability under Wickremesinghe, but voters still face high taxes and a high cost of living. AP said economic growth of about 2 percent was expected in 2024 after a 7 percent contraction in 2022. The question now is whether a government elected on anger can preserve stability while easing the pain that anger produced.

Dissanayake’s political rise has also been notable in historical terms. He first won a parliamentary seat in 2000, briefly served as agriculture and irrigation minister, and had previously run for president in 2019, when he won only a small share of the vote. This time, his alliance included academics, civil society activists, artists, lawyers and students, giving the campaign a broader social reach than his earlier bid.

The AP report makes clear that the vote was not simply about one person winning office. It was a public judgment on corruption, economic mismanagement and the willingness of the political class to absorb blame. By the time the count moved into its second round, that judgment was already visible.