Sri Lanka’s first leftist president was sworn in to office yesterday vowing to restore public faith in politics, but said he had no magic solution to the hardships suffered following an unprecedented economic crisis.
Sri Lankan President and self-avowed Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayaka of the People’s Liberation Front (JVP) took his oath at the colonial-era Presidential Secretariat in Colombo after trouncing his nearest rivals in Saturday’s vote.
The previously fringe politician, whose party led two failed uprisings in the island nation that left tens of thousands dead, saw a surge of support after the 2022 economic meltdown immiserated millions of ordinary Sri Lankans.
Photo: AFP / Sri Lanka President’s Office
Dissanayaka, a bearded 55-year-old son of a laborer, was sworn in by Sri Lankan Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya in a nationally televised ceremony attended by diplomats, lawmakers, Buddhists and other clergy, and the military.
“I am not a conjuror, I am not a magician, I am a common citizen,” he said after taking his oath. “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.”
A small crowd of JVP supporters gathered outside the secretariat to celebrate, waving pictures of Dissanayaka and the national flag.
Dissanayaka succeeds outgoing Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office at the peak of the financial crisis following the government’s first foreign debt default, and months of punishing food, fuel and medicine shortages.
Wickremesinghe, 75, imposed steep tax hikes and other austerity measures under the terms of an IMF bailout.
His policies ended the shortages and returned the economy to growth, but left millions struggling to make ends meet.
India and China — Sri Lanka’s biggest neighbor and largest bilateral creditor respectively — are competing for influence in the island nation, strategically situated on global east-west sea routes.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he looked forward to working closely with Dissanayaka to “strengthen our multifaceted cooperation for the benefit of our people and the entire region.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said that he hoped to broaden cooperation with Sri Lanka under his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Sri Lanka’s years-long economic collapse has been blamed partly on struggling high-debt Chinese mega-projects coordinated through the BRI.
“I attach great importance to the development of China-Sri Lanka relations, and am willing to work with Mr President to continue our traditional friendship [and] enhance mutual political trust,” Xi said in a message to Dissanayaka, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.
Xi said he hoped bilateral cooperation under his flagship BRI would “bear more fruit,” it added.
He said that Beijing would “promote the steady progress of sincere mutual assistance between China and Sri Lanka as well as our age-old strategic cooperative partnership, and create more benefits for the peoples of both countries.”
Western critics accuse China of using the BRI to enmesh developing nations in unsustainable debt to exert diplomatic leverage over them or even seize their assets.
In December 2017, unable to repay a huge Chinese loan, Sri Lanka handed its Hambantota port in the south of the island to a Beijing company on a 99-year lease for US$1.12 billion.
China is the nation’s largest bilateral creditor, its loans accounting for US$4.66 billion of the US$10.58 billion that Sri Lanka has borrowed from other countries.
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