A birthday message for Sri Lanka's new President: Don't squander your mandate

The Nov 14 polls swept away the entrenched political elite, giving President Dissanayake a much freer hand to put his battered country on the road to recovery.

- Ravi Velloor

Most new governments take office with the weight of public expectations hanging heavy over them. In that regard, the expectations of Sri Lanka's new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his leftist-oriented National People's Power (NPP) movement are particularly onerous.

After a decisive outcome in the September presidential polls, Mr Dissanayake swiftly ordered parliamentary elections, seeking a clear mandate for NPP, which was at the forefront of the 2022 uprising that toppled then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Sri Lankans responded to the call.

NPP, which had just three seats in the previous House, now holds 159 of the 225 parliamentary seats after the Nov 14 elections.

Most impressively, while NPP's power base is in the populous Sinhala-dominated south of Sri Lanka, its alliance scored heavily in Jaffna, the headquarters of the northern province and erstwhile bastion of the Tamil minority's separatist movement.

It has swept away the entrenched political elite that dominated Sri Lanka's post-independence politics and embarked on an unfamiliar adventure: running the nation of 22 million people. Now it has to deliver.

Will it be able to? Aside from AKD, as Mr Dissanayake is known around the island, few in his Cabinet of some two dozen members have significant administrative experience, even if they carry impressive paper qualifications.

AKD, who turned 56 on Nov 24, himself retained two key portfolios - finance and defence.

Tellingly, he retained two key officials of the former government - the central bank chief and the finance secretary.

What lies ahead?

A South Asian, China-friendly "Cuba" on India's southern tip? A dirigiste regime hewing to the Marxist-Leninist instincts of NPP's parent organisation, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which has a history of armed insurrections?

A bumbling, fumbling band of well-meaning newbies in Cabinet?