New leader’s promises will be tricky to keep in hard-up Sri Lanka

A surprise election has won a new left-leaning president and his party has changed the political landscape of Sri Lanka – but the island’s cash-strapped new rulers have quickly learned that campaign promises are easier to make than to keep.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake a wonderful victory The presidential election in September was quickly followed by the National People’s Power (NPP) party in the parliamentary elections.

As the new year begins, he and his supporters want this to be a turning point for the country, which is trying to recover from economic problems and years of mismanagement.

However, he has little chance of fulfilling the promises to the voters, whose expectations from the new government are high.

Since the 2022 financial crash, economic recovery has been difficult and Sri Lanka is far from out of the woods.

The NPP won 159 seats in the 225-member assembly in November – a two-thirds majority – giving Dissanayake a major mandate to push through major economic and constitutional reforms.

However, despite the coming results, the new president had to prepare a meeting with representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which the outgoing government discussed with them about $ 2.9bn (£ 2.31bn) .

The IMF deal was controversial because it led to austerity measures, tax hikes and cuts in electricity subsidies – hitting ordinary people hard.

During the campaign Dissanayake and his coalition promised to renegotiate aspects of the IMF agreement.

But in his speech to the new parliament, he made a change.

“The economy is in such a position that it cannot be shaken at all… There is no room for error,” said Dissanayake.

“This is not the time to discuss whether there is a point [of the IMF loan] it’s good or bad, whether the agreement is good for us or not… This project took almost two years, and we can’t start again.”

The NPP voter turnout appears to be the culmination of social unrest triggered by the economic crisis. Attack Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the summer of 2022, when Sri Lanka ran out of foreign currency and struggled to import food and fuel.

The country has already declared default on its nearly $46bn foreign debt. India, China and Japan are among the billion dollar borrowers.

The results of the recent elections also reflected public anger at the established political parties – those of former presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe and others – for failing to tackle the economic crisis.

“One of the most important things for Dissanayake will be to provide financial relief to the people because of high taxes and financial problems. Debt management is another big problem,” former political analyst Prof Jayadeva Uyangoda told the BBC.

So far the major political changes do not seem to have affected people like Niluka Dilrukshi, a mother of four who lives in the Colombo suburbs. Her husband works as a daily wage earner and the family still struggles to support him.

BBC he spoke to him about the rising cost of living in January 2022, a few months before the big shows.

At that time, he says his family was eating only two meals a day, instead of three, and only gave their children vegetables and rice because of the high prices of fish and meat.

“We are still struggling to make ends meet and nothing has changed. The price of rice, which is a staple food, has gone up a lot. We are not getting any relief from the government,” says Mrs. Dilrukshi.

People like him want the new government to take immediate action to reduce the cost of essential goods. Sri Lanka is a foreign dependent country, and needs foreign currency to bring in things like food and medicine.

Currently, Colombo is able to maintain its savings account because of the moratorium on debt repayments.

The real fight, experts say, will probably start in the next three to four years when it starts paying off its debt.

People’s opinion of President Dissanayake and his new government may change if there are no visible changes in their lives in the next two to three years.

“The people gave him a great responsibility. The IMF should respect this by allowing him to give relief to the people through humanitarian programs,” says Prof Uyangoda.

Dissanayake also has to contend with India and China, which are vying for Sri Lanka, where both have invested heavily in recent years.

“Both India and China will try to bring Colombo under their control. I think the foreign policy of the new government will be very strange without cooperation with anyone,” says Prof Uyangoda.

In a successful diplomatic campaign, Dissanayake chose Delhi as his first overseas diplomatic mission in mid-December. During the visit, India promised to supply Sri Lankan natural gas and work on connecting the two countries’ electricity supply in the future.

China’s increased presence in Sri Lanka, particularly the calls by Chinese “exploratory” ships to ports on the island – very close to India’s southern tip – has raised concerns in Delhi.

“I have given an assurance to the Prime Minister of India that we will not allow our land to be used in any way that harms the interests of India,” Dissanayake said after a meeting with Narendra Modi.

Delhi will no doubt be happy with the assurance, but Dissanayake will get what Beijing hopes for when he visits China in mid-January.