Left Leaning Anura Dissanayake Elected Next President of Sri Lanka

A left-leaning leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was elected as Sri Lanka’s next president in the island nation’s first poll since its economy collapsed in 2022.

Dissanayake is popularly known as “AKD”. He entered politics by joining the student wing of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a Marxist-Leninist party in Sri Lanka.

He hails from a modest background as his father was a government office help and his mother a homemaker.

Initially, the JVP maintained a staunch anti-imperialist and socialist position, but by the 1980s, it shifted towards Sinhala nationalism. The party fiercely opposed Tamil political claims and external intervention in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict.

The JVP was banned in the 1980s and later legalized. The JVP entered mainstream politics, winning seats in parliament. Dissanayake became a Member of Parliament in 2000 and also served as the Minister of Agriculture under President Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike between 2004 and 2005.

In 2014, he was appointed leader of the JVP, succeeding Somawansa Amarasinghe.

2019, Mr Dissanayake contested the presidential election against Gotabaya Rajapaksa.