A Populist Left Victory in Sri Lanka

Can the NPP confront its past and present to build a radical program?

*Tilvin Silva, General Secretary of the JVP, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Image: SL Guardian*

Between September and November 2024, Sri Lanka entered its first major elections since the country’s sovereign debt default two years earlier. The default had led to a spate of popular protests that eventually ousted the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa’s government was swiftly replaced by the neoliberal Ranil Wickremesinghe administration, which imposed harsh austerity measures on the masses on the pretext of “stability” and “recovery.”
The 2024 elections, which took place against the backdrop of mass resistance to these policies, were resoundingly, but not surprisingly, won by the left-populist National People’s Power (NPP), which vehemently criticized the neoliberal reforms. The Sri Lankan elections have revived hope for popular left-wing alternatives in the South Asian region. They come at a time when other countries in South Asia, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, have undergone harsh IMF-mandated debt restructuring and austerity.

A Surprise Victory

*Billboard of Anura Kumara Dissanayake during the election campiagn. Image: Getty Images*

On September 17, less than a week before the parliamentary elections, the Institute for Health Policy (IHP), a think tank based in Colombo, released the results of a poll that predicted a comfortable lead for the NPP candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a decline for the Samagi Jana Balavegaya candidate, and a dramatic downswing for the incumbent, Wickremesinghe.

The prospect of a NPP victory rang alarm bells for the economic and political establishment, given some of its campaign promises – most prominently, to revise the terms of its 17th IMF agreement .

While think tanks and policy-makers credited the Wickremesinghe government for restoring economic stability, both local and foreign commentators questioned its harsh austerity measures on the Sri Lankan people. The NPP’s electoral campaign not only questioned the IMF agreement, but also the mandate of the government which enforced it.

Faced with criticism, the head of the IHP, Dr. Ravi Rannan-Eliya, publicly defended the poll, arguing that voters wanted not just regime change, but a shift in the country’s politics: in short, its way of doing things.

Dissanayake takes power

On September 22nd, Anura Kumara Dissanayake took office as Sri Lanka’s first left-leaning president, its first openly left-wing head of state since 1970, and one of only two leaders from outside of the traditional political elite. After assuming the presidency, Dissanayake has fueled speculation about his party’s political orientation. The litmus test for the NPP now comes after its resounding two-thirds victory in the parliamentary elections.

“The Western and Indian press has splashed headlines, calling the NPP ‘leftwing’, ‘socialist’, ‘left nationalist’, even ‘communist.’ The Sri Lankan press has been more cautious.”

The Western and Indian press has splashed headlines, calling the NPP ‘leftwing’, ‘socialist’, ‘left nationalist’, and even ‘communist.’ The Sri Lankan press has been more cautious. For the most part, commentators have refrained from using totalizing terms: Rathindra Kuruwita, an international relations analyst based in Colombo, argues that the more correct characterization would be left-leaning or center-left, which leftwing commentators have largely agreed with.

In its first few weeks after winning elections, Dissanayake’s government has shown itself to be moderate on several fronts. It has retained several Ministry officials from the previous administration, signaled its commitment to the deeply unpopular IMF program, and appointed prominent business and corporate bigwigs to official posts. In his first address to the nation, Dissanayake stated that stability “in the current economy” would be a foremost priority for his government.

At the same time, the Dissanayake administration has been keen to distinguish itself from previous governments. In the run-up to the election, the NPP frequently invoked what it called Sri Lanka’s 75-year “curse” – elite domination of the country’s politics. Since independence, elections have typically been won by the centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFF), the right-wing United National Party (UNP), or their breakaway factions, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and the Samagi Jana Balavegaya.

Even with its ostensibly ‘anti-elite’ agenda, the NPP has had to navigate the same bureaucracy and state apparatus that these elites have controlled for the last three-quarters of a century. Since coming to power, it has pushed through some symbolic reforms, from opening roads previously closed for security reasons to reversing the privatization of the country’s flagship airline. On other questions, however, it remains tight-lipped at best and surprisingly tame at worst.

For a political outfit derided as inconsequential and fringe, especially by liberal commentators, the NPP’s electoral performance has reduced the dominance of elite parties, including the main Opposition the Samagi Jana Balavegaya. Some analysts have suggested that it marks “the end of nepotism and patronage-based politics”.

The Insurgent History of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) or People’s Liberation Front

The NPP has been framed as anti-elite, anti-systemic, and anti-establishment, a bête noire of the status quo. Its lack of governance experience has been marketed in its favor. Responding to journalists after the presidential election, the new Prime Minister, Dr Harini Amarasuriya, said, “We don’t have experience bankrupting the country.” Such remarks reflect a specific conjuncture in Sri Lanka’s history – as Ramindu Perera, a political analyst, sees it, as the “momentous” rise of the populist left.
Critics of the government, on the left and right, have argued that this is part of the NPP’s attempt to whitewash its history. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, or People’s Liberation Front), the dominant party in the NPP alliance, has been in government before. In fact, in 2004, the party received four cabinet portfolios, including the agriculture portfolio for current president Dissanayake. Left critics have also argued that the JVP and NPP are using the same rhetoric it accuses other parties of: populism and even chauvinism.

Understanding the skepticism surrounding the NPP, including from the left, requires a more nuanced look at the JVP’s complex history. The JVP was formed in May 1965 after the Sino-Soviet split. Its founding leader, Rohana Wijeweera, was a fiery revolutionary who, while a student of medicine at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, had been refused entry to Russia on account of his support for China. Beginning his political journey in the Peking wing of the Communist Party of Ceylon (CPC), Wijeweera left the CPC (P) in 1965 to mobilize the Sinhalese rural petty bourgeoisie.

Combining revolutionary ardor with anti-establishment rhetoric, the JVP planned independent Sri Lanka’s first anti-State insurrection in 1971. Swiftly crushed by the left-nationalist United Front government, the party’s rank and file was forced into exile, or imprisonment, for much of the 1970s.

*JVP leadership at May Day celebration in Colombo in 1999. Image: Wikimedia*

In 1977, the United Front government was defeated in the polls by the United National Party, which put J. R. Jayewardene in power. Nicknamed “Yankee Dicky” for his pro-Western views, Jayewardene, among other things, broke the country’s non-aligned foreign policy to intervene on behalf of the US during the Iran hostage crisis and voted with the UK on the Falklands dispute. For Sri Lankans, his presidency marked a transition to right-wing neoliberal authoritarianism, in which trade unions were crushed and, in Jayewardene’s own apt phrasing, corporate “robber barons” were let in.

The Jayewardene government’s relaxation of import controls on agricultural goods undercut the Tamil and Sinhalese peasantry in the north and south. This opened two battlefronts: a separatist conflict in the north and a youth insurgency in the south, the latter led by the JVP against the government - and an increasingly interventionist India.

This second insurgency (lasting from 1988 to 1990) cost up to 60,000 – some estimates put it at 100,000 – lives. Eager to portray itself as an ally of the West, and the insurgents as a radical Marxist grouping, the UNP vocally invoked the “Indonesian solution” in its campaign against the JVP.

In 1982, a decade after its first insurrection, the JVP made its first foray into elections, with Wijeweera as presidential candidate. A year later, the United National Party government proscribed the JVP, along with other Left parties.

Following Wijeweera’s assassination by government forces in November 1989, the JVP slowly re-entered the democratic mainstream. In 1994, it contested general elections and won one seat. Six years later, the party again contested general elections and won six percent of the national vote, securing 10 seats in parliament - including Dissanayake.

*Rohan Wijeweera, JVP’s founding leader. Image: groundviews.org*

Challenges of a Democratic Turn

These MPs were largely drawn from the “second generation of the JVP leadership.” Like the leaders of countless socialist administrations in Latin America – from Hugo Chavez to Lula de Silva – this generation began as student activists and trade union leaders. Dissanayake, for instance, was recruited to the student wing of the JVP in the late 1980s and emerged as the National Organizer of the Socialist Students’ Union, allied with the party.

“Left critics have argued that the JVP and NPP’s decision to woo a section of the urban middle-classes, including appointing prominent businessmen as economic advisors, has contributed to an abandonment of its radical credentials.”

Entering electoral politics pushed the JVP to expand its political base to win over voters accustomed to voting for the two main parties. The JVP has also allied with those it would have earlier considered enemies: accepted ministries in 2004 from then President Chandrika Kumaratunga, whose mother was Prime Minister during the crackdown on the first JVP insurrection, and whose husband had been assassinated by a JVP-allied militant outfit in 1988.

In 2005, the country elected Mahinda Rajapaksa, a Sinhala nationalist politician who had made representations on behalf of the JVP to human rights organizations. The JVP backed his candidacy but withdrew their support when it became apparent that Rajapaksa’s popularity was losing the party its electoral base.

After supporting – explicitly, or from the sidelines – opposition candidates in 2010 and 2015, the JVP fielded its own candidate, Dissanayake, in 2019, under the umbrella of the newly formed National People’s Power alliance. In his first run at the presidency, Dissanayake managed to secure only 3.16 percent of the vote. This was in line with the NPP’s performance at the parliamentary elections the following year, where it won 3.84 percent and secured only three seats. Both elections were won by Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother, Gotabaya, under a new party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna - a combination of center-right and left-nationalist groups.

The 2022 crisis – where, amidst shortages of fuel and commodities and long hours of blackouts, protesters drawn from different segments and regions got together to oust the president – spelt a rupture in nationalist and radical politics in Sri Lanka. The nationalist-populist vote which Rajapaksa had dominated for decades effectively disintegrated. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family had dominated the Sinhala peasantry and the Sinhala middle-classes at least since he had become president in 2005. His brother’s ouster opened opportunities for radical and moderate elements to woo these electorates away. The NPP, in a manner of speaking, seized the day.
It would be tempting to reduce the NPP’s incredible journey from the three percent in 2020 to 42 percent at this year’s presidential polls to this rupture. However, it does not explain why it was the NPP, and not a different left or center-right “social democratic” formation, that capitalized on people’s discontent.

The NPP’s Path to Victory

Despite its fairly limited role in the anti-Rajapaksa protests of 2022, the NPP “emerged as the main beneficiary” of the protests due to the failure of the “establishment elite… to reach an elite bargain.” Having come into power without the backing of legacy media, Ramindu Perera notes, “Dissanayake defined a political frontier between the ‘corrupt political elite’ that has usurped power from the masses and the ‘people’ suffering due to those misdeeds.”

As always, the picture is complex. Prior to the elections, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya had criticized the ruling party vocally, but failed to offer an alternative to IMF-sanctioned austerity measures. By contrast, the NPP went head-on against the IMF agreement, going so far as to pledge a renegotiation should it come to power.

“The NPP’s strong electoral performance in the Tamil north and Muslim-populated east suggests a rejection of ‘old communal politics.’ ”

Since coming into power, however, the NPP has changed its line on the IMF program by publicly committing to it, instead calling for a greater focus on social protection. This shift has been criticized by the People’s Struggle Alliance (PSA) group, the NPP’s main rival on the Left, which has called for an exit from the IMF agreement and the resolution of the “National Question” between majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities. Rather ironically, key Wickremesinghe administration officials have praised the NPP’s commitment to continuing its austerity measures.

Left critics have argued that the JVP and NPP’s decision to woo a section of the (mostly) Sinhalese middle-classes has contributed to abandoning its radical credentials. This has, in their reading, deprived the JVP’s populist program of “any real commitment to the vigorous defense of the interests of the working masses.” Liberal and right-wing critics have dismissed the NPP for capitalizing on the discontentment of pro-Rajapaksa elements, including the Sinhalese peasantry, who were devastated by an overnight ban on chemical fertilizers. For some, the JVP’s hardline stances, such as its critique of Indian intervention in the ethnic conflict as ‘imperialist,’ reflect its ethno-nationalism. However, earlier this year, the JVP accepted an invitation from the Indian government for official meetings.

The Sri Lankan Left has historically opted for coalitions with other parties, something that has bred much distrust. In the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called Old Left, the Communist Party of Ceylon (CPC) and the Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party, or Lanka Equal Society Party (LSSP), entered pacts with the center-left-nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party to form one of Asia’s largest left-wing political alliances, the United Front. Denounced by the JVP as a bourgeois formation, the UF ended with the splintering and fragmentation of the old left parties, and their defeat by the neoliberal Jayewardene-led UNP government in 1977.

The JVP’s entry into mainstream politics in the 1990s signaled a significant departure from its previous advocacy of armed struggle, but also a shift towards parliamentarianism. In the 2000s, it tapped into widespread frustrations with the two-party system and embraced nationalist positions vis-à-vis the Tamil conflict by advocating a military solution. In the 2005 election, it supported Mahinda Rajapaksa, a tactic which backfired when Rajapaksa won over the JVP’s electorates, significantly the rural peasantry in the southern province. The 2022 crisis enabled the JVP to win back these voters.

Not surprisingly, the NPP’s 2024 election manifesto reveals a complex balancing act. The document identifies the country’s “isolation from the global community” as the main reason for Sri Lanka’s underdevelopment. At the same time, it envisions a state-centric approach, including regulating private education, improving housing facilities for marginalized communities, and setting up a new social protection program that is more “participatory, transparent, and efficient.” It also emphasizes production and state-led industrialization, which is different from the right-wing liberal line of global integration through trade.
The NPP has also been able to capture power without resorting to alliances - a break from the coalitions of the past. Unlike the Samagi Jana Balavegaya, which gave tickets to several ex-ministers from the 2022-2024 government, the NPP declared that it would accept only MPs of the correct political pedigree. By winning the elections outright on an anti-elite platform, the NPP managed to secure the clean victory, which previous left parties, specifically the Communist Party and LSSP, were unable to. However, while the NPP has rejected alliances with other political parties, it has built a different class coalition by uniting disaffected voters from diverse economic bases and social backgrounds.

This has been reflected in the party’s internal political makeup. One analyst has noted that “the ideological makeup of the NPP is… eclectic, including many middle-class professionals, academics, artists, and political activists.” He goes on to add that “some have a markedly liberal cosmopolitan character that is in stark contrast to the old JVP’s base of mainly rural cadres known for their militancy and patriotism.” In a way, this helps explain why the NPP managed to turn the vote in Colombo, which has previously tilted towards traditional parties, mainly the United National Party or Samagi Jana Balavegaya.

Postscript to the Future

The NPP's victory, at presidential and parliamentary polls, does not diminish the challenges it faces – especially its controversial record on the country’s minorities, particularly Tamils. A true left-populist program can be emancipatory only if it incorporates such communities.

Previously, Sri Lanka’s ethnic politics has shaped voter choices, in particular for the Tamil and Muslim minorities. At the national elections, minority voters have voted along the lines of communal parties, in particular, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi for Tamils and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and All Ceylon Makkal Congress for Muslims.

In recent years, these parties have tended to support center-right or right-wing candidates, almost all of them Sinhalese. In the 2010 presidential election, for instance, ITAK supported as their preferred presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, the former commander of the Sri Lankan Army, an outfit which has been accused of war crimes during the operation against the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Elam. The fact of a Tamil minority party calling for post-war accountability and justice while explicitly supporting a figure from the very army it opposed was commented on by political analysts.

Against this backdrop, the NPPs strong electoral performance in the Tamil north and Muslim-populated east suggests a rejection of ‘old communal politics.’ However, it would be naïve to take these results as evidence of a ‘post-racial’ moment in Sri Lanka. Instead, the NPPs strong performance has coincided with electoral wins for several independent candidates who have taken more hardline positions on the war and post-war accountability. In the North, the electoral tide suggests a rejection of traditional traditional parties in the region, which mostly urged “Tamils to wait for self-rule to address their grievances” and had “nothing to say or offer to the exploited in the interim.”

*Activists from the JVP at the 2022 May Day rally in Colombo. Image: Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP*

Analysts have tried to explain the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi’s loss in the North on the basis that it has been perceived as a traditional elite party, like the United National Party and Sri Lanka Freedom Party in the South. In particular, its decision to support the Samagi Jana Balavegaya at the presidential election proved controversial, especially since it had earlier decided to support a common Tamil candidate. According to Rathindra Kuruwita, “The NPP did its fieldwork in the [Northern] region and managed to attack Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi’s blind spots, including its sidelining of economic, bread-and-butter issues revolving around land, water, housing, and agriculture.”

As another commentator puts it, “The economy of the Northern Province shrunk between 2014 and 2020 from 5 percent of the national GDP to 4.2. percent. In addition, key issues of service provision remain unsolved, for instance, even Jaffna lacks access to clean drinking water through public pipelines.”

The NPP’s strategy focused on these failures and accused Tamil parties of having done nothing for their people – the same strategy it used against its rivals in the south. Prior to the general election, the JVP argued that most Tamils wanted “land and water for cultivation, a price for their produce, a place to sell, a school, a hospital.” Even though the JVP was criticized for downplaying postwar accountability, the election results suggest that voters perceived that ITAK failed to deliver on both promises of development or post-war accountability. While this does not signal the end of Tamil nationalism, it suggests a generational-ideological shift in Tamil nationalist politics.

The NPP’s objective in the election was to win power. Its anti-elite rhetoric delivered. It has now taken control of the same state apparatus that it has been criticizing since the 1970s. Vijay Prashad has written that Dissanayake’s victory has “encouraged a new generation to breathe again.” The question remains, however: will it choose to embrace the left, or steer towards the center? Faced with the baggage of its own history, the NPP must now confront the arduous task of building a radical program. As Prashad puts it, such a program could serve as a model for the Global South.

Uditha Devapriya is the Chief International Relations Analyst at Factum, an Asia-Pacific focused think-tank based in Colombo. He can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.