Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, dissolved Parliament and called a snap election for November 14, moving quickly to seek a workable legislative mandate after his presidential victory days earlier. A government notification made the dissolution effective at midnight on Tuesday.
The decision was expected because Dissanayake had promised during the campaign to end the existing Parliament early. His National People’s Power coalition controlled only three seats in the 225-member chamber, leaving him without the numbers needed to appoint a full Cabinet or reliably advance his program. The parliamentary term otherwise would have continued until the following August.
A prompt election offered Dissanayake a chance to convert the momentum from his presidential win into parliamentary representation. He defeated former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa in the weekend vote as many Sri Lankans turned away from the established political leadership they blamed for the country’s severe economic crisis.
Hours before dissolving Parliament, Dissanayake appointed lawmaker Harini Amarasuriya as prime minister. The 54-year-old university lecturer and activist became the first woman to lead Sri Lanka’s government in 24 years. She also took responsibility for portfolios covering justice, health, women, trade and industries during the compact transitional administration.
Another coalition lawmaker, Vijitha Herath, was assigned six areas, including foreign affairs, transport, public security, environment, ports and civil aviation. The concentration of ministries among a small group reflected the president’s extremely limited parliamentary base before the election.
Amarasuriya followed Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the last woman to serve as Sri Lankan prime minister. Bandaranaike became the world’s first female head of government in 1960 and served three terms through 2000. Her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, later served as Sri Lanka’s first and only female president from 1994 to 2005. Despite those precedents, men had continued to dominate the country’s political system.
The new government faced an immediate economic test. Dissanayake had promised relief from austerity measures adopted under Wickremesinghe as part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund after Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt. Wickremesinghe warned that altering core bailout terms could delay a fourth installment of a package worth nearly $3 billion.
Sri Lanka’s crisis followed years of economic mismanagement, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the 2019 attacks on tourism. Against that backdrop, the November vote would determine whether Dissanayake could gain the parliamentary support needed to pursue change while navigating the country’s continuing financial constraints. The election timetable compressed that political test into less than two months, giving the young administration limited time to organize its campaign and explain its economic program.
