Sri Lanka's new leader to call snap parliamentary polls

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s new leftist president is expected to call a snap parliamentary election ahead of his plans to renegotiate the bankrupt island nation’s unpopular International Monetary Fund bailout programme.

Self-avowed Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the People’s Liberation Front (JVP) was sworn into office on Monday after a landslide win in weekend presidential polls.

His once-marginal party currently has just three lawmakers in Sri Lanka’s 225-member parliament.

But support for Dissanayake surged after a 2022 economic meltdown that immiserated millions of ordinary Sri Lankans and a contentious International Monetary Fund rescue package.

Asked by reporters late Monday in the central city of Kandy if he would keep a campaign pledge to dissolve parliament as soon as he took charge, he replied: “Wait for two days.”

Lawmaker Harini Amarasuriya, an ally of Dissanayake’s in parliament, told reporters in Colombo the same night that parliament would be dissolved “within a day”.

Sri Lanka’s crisis proved an opportunity for Dissanayake, who saw his popularity rise after pledging to change the island’s “corrupt” political culture.

He beat 38 other candidates to win Saturday’s presidential vote, taking more than 1.2 million more votes than his nearest rival.

His predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had imposed steep tax hikes and other unpopular austerity measures under the terms of the $2.9 billion IMF bailout secured last year, came a distant third.

The IMF offered its congratulations to Dissanayake on Monday, saying it was ready to discuss the future of the rescue plan.

“We look forward to working together with President Dissanayake… towards building on the hard-won gains that have helped put Sri Lanka on a path to economic recovery,” a spokesman from the lender of last resort said.

‘Not a magician’

A senior aide of the new president told AFP on the weekend that Dissayanake’s party would not repudiate the IMF deal.

“Our plan is to engage with the IMF and introduce certain amendments,” Bimal Ratnayake said.

“We will not tear up the IMF programme. It is a binding document, but there is a provision to renegotiate.”

In his first address after his inauguration, Dissayanake sought to lower expectations of a quick fix for the country’s economic woes.

“I am not a conjuror, I am not a magician, I am a common citizen,” he said.

“I have strengths and limitations, things I know and things I don’t… my responsibility is to be part of a collective effort to end this crisis.”