The NPP is expected to gain 160 seats in total, including those allocated through proportional representation, while its nearest rival, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), won just over 40 seats. This represents the first time a single combination has achieved a brute majority under Sri Lanka’s proportional representation system, with the JVP-led coalition rising dramatically from three seats in the last parliament to an unprecedented super-majority in this tenth parliament.

Over 17 million voters were eligible to vote at 13,421 polling booths across the island, though turnout was about 65 percent, the lowest in almost a decade and a half.

The victory comes as Sri Lanka struggles to recover from its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, following years of economic mismanagement, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2019 Easter bombings. In 2022, then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to resign after massive street protests over inflation and shortages of essential goods.

Dissanayake won September’s presidential poll riding a wave of popular discontent with austerity measures imposed by his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as part of a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With his coalition holding just three seats in the outgoing parliament, the 55-year-old JVP leader called snap legislative elections in search of a new mandate.

ESSF correspondents Balasingham Skanthakumar and Pitasanna Shanmugathas explain that already in his presidential electoral campaign, Dissanayake campaigned “not on a socialist or anti-capitalist platform, but rather taking up the cry for ’change’ in a degenerate decades-old political culture which is blamed by large sections of the population across class, gender, ethnicity, and religion, for the economic catastrophe of 2021-2022.”The expectation of those who voted him in, and many of those who did not, is that his government will transform the political culture where politicians lord over the people in between election day; reward themselves whether in government or opposition with privileges and perks; profit from their office through deal-making and bribes from other political parties, local and foreign businesses; and access to government and international tenders and contracts; and enjoy impunity from investigation, prosecution, and imprisonment, for their abuses and crimes in office.

“This was the sentiment of the 2022 popular uprising known as the janatha aragalaya (people’s struggle in Sinhala). Although that movement was short-lived, it contributed immensely to the leap in popularity of the National People’s Power coalition, that the JVP initiated in 2019 to broaden its class base from leftist petit-bourgeois and working-class layers to more conservative classes, paving Dissanayake’s way into the presidency.”

Despite excitement at this dramatic shift in parliamentary politics, some leftists are sceptical about the JVP’s determination and capacity to confront the economic and political power of the capitalist elites. Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) Chief Secretary Kumar Gunaratnam said that the JVP is no longer the transformational party it once was. “NPP President and the JVPers today seemed to have forgotten the socialist path which was taught by the late founders of their party who sacrificed their lives both in 1971 and in 1989.”

Economic challenges

The NPP must navigate several immediate challenges:
– Managing the USD 2.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout
– Implementing their promised abolition of the executive presidency
– Addressing the fragmentation in Tamil politics
– Delivering on economic reforms while maintaining social stability
– Implementing the ambitious Digital Sri Lanka programme
– Reforming public administration and service delivery

JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva recently outlined the coalition’s economic priorities and vision for transformation. “To rebuild Sri Lanka, we must shift to a production-based economy. This involves tapping into both foreign investments and our own national resources. The key to attracting global investors is establishing transparent governance, free from fraud and corruption,” Silva explained.

The economic crisis, Silva noted, has reached severe proportions: “The previous government declared the country bankrupt in 2022, and we inherited an economy in ruins, with national assets being sold off just to keep the country afloat. For instance, the government planned to sell the Milko company along with 28,000 acres of land. Instead of leveraging national resources to rebuild the economy, they opted to sell them off.”

Silva emphasized three core strategic areas:
– Fostering a productive economy
– Involving common people in the economic process
– Ensuring growth benefits reach all sections of society

The party has set ambitious goals, including increasing tourist arrivals to four million next year. Additionally, Silva outlined plans for systemic reforms in education and healthcare: “By improving the economic conditions in education, we can reduce costs for parents and provide much-needed relief. Similarly, in the healthcare sector, we plan to improve services and expand access, ensuring that benefits flow to the community.”

As our correspondents noted after Dissanayke won the presidency, "The NPP is pro-free trade, pro-foreign investment, and pro-export orientation. It will not reverse the expansion of private health and education services but rather promises to regulate it in the interests of users. It balances classic neoliberal tenets, with references to expanding domestic production (that is, import substitution without naming it); opposition to privatization of state-owned-enterprises; and expanded social programs and budgetary allocations for vulnerable groups (elders, pensioners, young mothers and women with young children, persons with disabilities and chronic illnesses, etc.).

It has also been careful to sidestep any reference to the bloated military budget that consumes 7% of the national budget, and almost as much as health and education combined. This scandal is politically inviolable because of the national security ideology fostered by the Sinhala nationalist state over almost three decades of war between 1983 and 2009. The NPP’s references to the redistribution of wealth and income are sotto voce, to not discomfort the classes whose approval matters so much to it."

Historic Shift in Tamil Politics and Electoral Patterns

The election marked a fundamental change in Sri Lankan ethnic politics, with Tamils in the northern province district of Jaffna voting for the JVP, a Sinhala-Buddhist party, for the first time in the nation’s history. The NPP won both Vanni and Jaffna, traditionally hardline Tamil areas, illustrating a dramatic shift in political allegiances.

In Jaffna, the NPP won three seats alongside the ITAK, All Ceylon Tamil Congress, and an independent group. Though there are over 593,000 registered voters in Jaffna, only about 325,000 turned up at the booths.

According to ESSF correspondents, “While the NPP manifesto identifies some of the pressing concerns of Tamils in the conflict-affected North and East such as abolition of counter-terrorism legislation and release of political prisoners; truth and justice for the families of the disappeared, land grabs by state institutions, access to public services for Tamil-speakers through effective implementation of the official language law; re-activation of the provincial council system for greater self-rule; socio-economic concerns of Hill-Country Tamils (plantation laborers and their descendants) for housing, land, health and education, many commitments are vague and not time-bound.”

The electoral situation in the Northern and Eastern Provinces revealed intricate dynamics within Tamil communities. An unprecedented number of candidates contested in these regions – 2,067 candidates for just 28 parliamentary seats across five districts.

The fragmentation of Tamil politics has been notably influenced by diaspora funding. Various diaspora Tamil groups have been funding multiple parties and independent candidates, contributing to the proliferation of political entities. Several academics in the north reported being approached by diaspora groups offering financial support to form independent political groups.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), once the dominant force in Tamil politics, has seen its parliamentary representation steadily decline from 22 seats in 2004 to 10 seats in 2020. The alliance has recently fractured, with the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) and the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) breaking away to form the Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA).

Fall of Traditional Political Forces

The election saw the dramatic decline of traditional political powers. The former President Ranil Wickremesinghe-led New Democratic Front secured merely four seats, while former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s party, which had held a majority in the outgoing parliament, was reduced to just two seats. Many former MPs and political heavyweights fell by the wayside.

The new PSA parliamentary group includes many activists like Swasthika Arulingam, who have been sceptical of traditional electoral and parliamentary politics. These left leaders must now shift from opposition to government roles. Arulingam recently said that her vision extends beyond mere representation; she aims to create new structures for direct political participation through initiatives like people’s councils. “We must reclaim that space,” she asserts, referring to the political sphere long dominated by corrupt elites. “We must be inside and outside the space and be the corridor for people to be part of state power.”

Former JVP activist now leader of the Frontline Socialist Party Kumar Gunaratnam is sceptical about the ability of PSA parliamentarians to break the mold of parliamentary politics, which has weakened and destroyed so many left political parties that enter the parliamentary arena. “It is true that the presidency had gone to a person who represents the downtrodden class. This is most welcome. We would also welcome the good things that may be done by the present regime such as dealing with those who have robbed public funds and the abolition of the executive presidency. We also stand for seeing new faces in Parliament. However, a complete transition towards socialism should be brought about through a revolution outside the Legislature […] Our challenge is to mobilize people for a revolution like the one in which we were engaged in 2022.”