Sri Lanka’s first Marxist president was sworn into office on Monday, aiming to restore public trust in politics following a landslide election victory fueled by resentment over the island nation’s catastrophic economic catastrophe.
Self-avowed Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayaka of the People’s Liberation Front (JVP) took his oath at Colombo’s colonial-era Presidential Secretariat after defeating his closest challengers in Saturday’s election.
The formerly fringe figure, whose party led two failed uprisings that killed tens of thousands, witnessed a surge in support when the country’s 2022 economic catastrophe wreaked havoc on ordinary Sri Lankans.
The top justice swore in Dissanayaka, 55, in a ceremony attended by parliamentarians, Buddhist clergy, and military personnel, who sung the national anthem thereafter.
“I will do my best to fully restore the people’s confidence in politicians,” Dissanayaka said after taking the oath.
“I am not a conjurer, I am not a magician,” he added. “There are things I know and things I don’t know, but I will seek the best advice and do my best. For that, I need the support of everyone.”
Dissanayaka succeeds outgoing president Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office at the peak of the financial crisis following the government’s first-ever foreign debt default and months of punishing food, fuel and medicine shortages.
Wickremesinghe, 75, imposed steep tax hikes and other austerity measures per the terms of an International Monetary Fund bailout.
His policies ended the shortages and returned the economy to growth, leaving millions struggling to make ends meet.
“I can confidently say that I did my best to stabilise the country during one of its darkest periods,” he said in a statement after placing a distant third in Saturday’s poll.
Shortly before the ceremony, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena resigned, clearing the way for Dissanayaka to appoint his own cabinet.
Dissanayaka’s party has said he wants to have his own cabinet until a fresh parliament is elected later this year. His JVP party has only three members in the 225-member parliament.
He has vowed to press ahead with the IMF rescue package negotiated by his predecessor last year but modify its terms in order to deliver tax cuts.
“It is a binding document, but there is a provision to renegotiate,” Bimal Ratnayake, a senior member of Dissanayaka’s party, told AFP.
Legacy of violence
Dissanayaka’s party staged two rebellions in the 1970s and 1980s, killing over 80,000 people before renouncing violence.
It had been a minor presence in Sri Lankan politics for decades, receiving less than 4% of the vote in the most recent parliamentary elections in 2020.
However, Sri Lanka’s crisis presented a chance for Dissanayaka, who saw his popularity soar after promising to reform the island’s “corrupt” political culture.
The 55-year-old laborer’s son was a JVP student leader during the second insurgency and has told how one of his professors hid him to protect him from government-backed death squads who executed party activists.
His heroes include the well-known Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
Since his rise to prominence, he has tempered his positions, stating that he believes in an open economy and is not entirely opposed to privatisation.