Explainer 436: Sri Lanka’s new president

解说员 436:斯里兰卡新总统

The Foreign Desk

新闻

2024-09-26

5 分钟
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Andrew Mueller explores the reasons why Sri Lankans ditched their traditional leaders and plumped for Anura Kumara Dissanayake instead. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  • Sri Lankan politics have generally been a family affair.

  • Before this past weekend's presidential election, Sri Lanka's previous two presidents, Ranil Vikrambasinghe and Gotabaya Rajapaka, had both been scions of well established political dynasties.

  • The Rajapakas in particular had come to believe themselves something akin to Sri Lankan royalty.

  • Gotabaya's brothers, Mahinda, Shamal and Basil all served variously as President, Prime Minister, speaker of the House and Minister of Finance, among other appointments.

  • A Rajapaksa did stand in this election, Namal, son of Mahinda, but by way of demonstrating that the brand has become somewhat tarnished, won just 2.57% of the vote.

  • That is pretty much everyone called Rajapaka or related to a Rajapaka and few besides.

  • We will return presently to the Rajapakas unwitting and certainly unwilling enablers of an extraordinary shift in their nation's politics.

  • In Sri Lanka, Anura Kumara Desa Nai AKA has been named as the winner of the presidential election.

  • Sri Lanka's new president, Anura Kumara Dasanayaki, is both an exception and a reaction to the closed shop tradition.

  • He ran as an outsider in a country which has tended to elect insiders, but beat incumbent President Ranil Vikram Basinga into third place and Sajith Pramadasa, the son of another former president.

  • You see the pattern emerging into second.

  • Three questions therefore present.

  • Who is Anura Kumura Desenoyake?

  • Why did his fellow citizens elect him?

  • And what will he do with Sri Lanka's presidency now that he has it?

  • The first of these is easiest to answer.

  • Dessaniake, usually and mercifully known as AKD, was born 55 years ago in a village in North Central Province to a family of no great means.

  • He is a physicist by education but a politician by vocation, involved since his student days with the party he now leads, the Janata Vimukti Paramuna, or jvp.

  • The name translates broadly as People's Liberation Front and its logo was and is a scarlet hammer and sickle.

  • At which point observant listeners will have begun to form some idea of the JVP's general outlook.