Marxist Leads Presidential Vote as Sri Lanka Rejects the Old Order
Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s strong showing reveals voter weariness with leadership that has led to a national economic crisis and crushing hardship for many people.The Marxist candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, led the early counting in Sri Lanka’s presidential elections on Sunday, riding a wave of popular anger at the established political order that has run the South Asian nation’s economy into the ground.If Mr. Dissanayake, 55, is confirmed as president, it would be a remarkable turnaround for his half-century-old leftist party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, which had long remained on the margins. In recent years, he led a rebranding effort of an organization once known for deadly insurrections: building a large coalition, softening its radical positions, and pitching it as the answer to the politics of patronage that has brought only hardship to many of the island nation’s roughly 23 million people.Early results showed Mr. Dissanayake leading with about 50 percent of votes amid high turnout, estimated at 75 to 80 percent. His closest competitor had received about 20 percent of the votes cast.At least three senior leaders of his opposition, including Sri Lanka’s current foreign minister, had already put out messages congratulating him on his imminent victory, as dawn broke on overnight vote counting that is continuing.In Sri Lanka’s election system, voters can mark one candidate on their ballot or rank three candidates in order of preference. If no one candidate gets 50 percent or more of the vote in the first counting, a second round of counting factors in the second preference of voters whose first choice did not make it to the top two.Election officials carrying ballot boxes to a counting center in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, on Saturday.Navesh Chitrakar/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
