-By LeN Political Correspondent - (for the first anniversary of 'Anurella')
(Lanka-e-News - 16.Sep.2025, 11.30 PM)
When the National People’s Power (NPP) swept to victory in Sri Lanka’s September 2024 presidential election, many observers framed it as a historic upset. For the party faithful, however, it was nothing short of a revolution—a revolt carried out not by guns or barricades, but by the quiet defiance of a democratic ballot.
The newly elected president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, whom the grassroots affectionately dub Anurella, has become the unlikely standard-bearer of a nation battered by decades of corruption, economic collapse, and social fragmentation. His triumph, predicted months in advance by a controversial Lanka e-News survey which forecast 53 per cent support, has been retrospectively recognised as the first tremor of a political earthquake that would shake the island.
“This was not simply an election,” says Dr. Perera, a political scientist at Colombo University. “It was the collective voice of a people who had run out of patience. They chose the ballot as their weapon.”
For nearly half a century, Sri Lanka’s political system had been a closed shop, dominated by two alternating dynasties and a clutch of ultra-wealthy backers. The arrangement was predictable: the richest two per cent funded campaigns; the victors governed in their donors’ interest.
The majority—the 98 per cent—watched as the gap between rich and poor widened. Infrastructure crumbled. Administrative services, from birth certificates to land deeds, remained mired in delays and corruption. The judicial system was accused of protecting the powerful rather than delivering justice.
By 2022, an unprecedented economic meltdown tipped the country into bankruptcy. Inflation soared, queues for fuel and food stretched across towns, and millions left the island to seek work abroad. Sri Lanka, once hailed as South Asia’s success story, had become a cautionary tale.
In this despair, NPP’s message of simple solutions—rooted in accountability, transparency, and frugality—struck a chord. “He was the only candidate who could speak to every Sri Lankan, from the unemployed youth to the struggling pensioner,” recalls Shanti, a garment worker in Gampaha. “He made us feel heard.”
Perhaps the most radical aspect of the NPP surge was its ability to bridge divisions. For decades, politics in Sri Lanka was conducted along the familiar fissures of ethnicity, religion, and caste. Tamil against Sinhalese, urban elites against rural farmers, coastal traders against hill-country workers—the island was partitioned not only by geography but by identity.
Anura Kumara’s campaign sought to erase those lines. Rallies in Jaffna, long neglected by southern politicians, drew crowds comparable to Colombo. Muslim communities in the east and estate workers in the central highlands reported, for the first time, that a presidential candidate had addressed their grievances without tokenism.
“The revolution was not only about economics,” says activist and historian M. A. Latheef. “It was about national unity. NPP’s victory made people believe that the divisions were manufactured to keep them weak.”
“Clean Sri Lanka” became the defining slogan of Anura’s first year in office. At first dismissed by rivals as little more than a branding exercise, the programme has since grown into a sweeping attempt to overhaul both state institutions and public morality.
Contrary to expectations, the campaign was not about tidying beaches or planting trees, though environmental drives featured. Instead, it was about cleansing the rot in governance.
Within days of assuming office, the NPP leadership abolished the long-established perks of Sri Lankan politics: luxury vehicles, sprawling government bungalows, and the tradition of enrolling MPs’ children in elite state schools. “We will live as the people live,” Anura declared at his first Cabinet meeting, a phrase that reverberated through a society long accustomed to the opulence of its rulers.
Government services have begun a digital transformation aimed at ending the infamous queues at public offices. The Department of Motor Traffic, notorious for bribery, now issues licences online. Hospitals and schools are receiving increased funding, with allocations tied to performance indicators rather than political loyalty.
Even more dramatically, the administration has launched a frontal assault on narcotics trafficking, a trade long intertwined with political patronage. Major drug lords have been extradited from overseas and paraded in court. Police officers suspected of collusion have been purged, while judicial independence—once a hollow phrase—is being gradually restored.
If critics once claimed that the NPP would be incapable of navigating international diplomacy, the government’s first year has confounded them.
In Geneva, at the UN Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka defended its sovereignty while signalling a willingness to engage constructively. The tightrope act has impressed diplomats, who note Colombo’s renewed credibility in multilateral forums.
The government has also maintained a policy of non-alignment, resisting pressure to tilt either towards USA’s Indo Pacific Initiative or India’s strategic embrace. Relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been particularly scrutinised. Where opponents warned of inevitable capitulation, the NPP has negotiated with unusual transparency, publishing the terms of agreements and ensuring parliamentary scrutiny.
“This government’s foreign policy is about balance,” notes a European diplomat. “They are neither isolationist nor submissive. It’s a sovereignty rooted in confidence, not paranoia.”
Among the most striking achievements of the NPP’s first year is the restoration of public trust in fiscal governance. Previous administrations were infamous for extravagant spending—convoys of vehicles, foreign junkets, ministerial palaces.
The NPP has turned austerity into a political virtue. Budgets for luxury items have been slashed. Ministers travel economy on state business. In a country where citizens had long watched elites feast while they starved, the symbolism has been powerful.
Economic data, though still fragile, has begun to reflect this new discipline. The budget deficit has been cut by 36 per cent, foreign reserves are stabilising, and inflation—once galloping—has slowed to manageable levels.
One of Anura’s most radical pledges is to extend voting rights to the Sri Lankan diaspora—millions of citizens who fled during the war or the economic crisis, and who send home remittances that form a backbone of the economy.
For decades, politicians resisted enfranchising these communities, fearing their votes would upset established calculations. The NPP has broken that taboo, promising to introduce overseas voting mechanisms within the next electoral cycle.
“It’s about fairness,” explains Foreign Minister Harini Amarasuriya. “You cannot take their dollars but deny their democratic voice.”
Perhaps the boldest horizon is the promise of a new “People’s Constitution.” For generations, Sri Lanka’s basic law has been manipulated by ruling parties to entrench power. Executive presidencies, immunity clauses, and emergency provisions were expanded at the expense of citizens’ rights.
The NPP has pledged a consultative process, engaging civil society, trade unions, professional associations, and grassroots communities in drafting a charter that reflects the will of the many rather than the privileges of the few.
Sceptics warn that constitutional reform has defeated many governments before. But Anura’s supporters insist that the political capital of this revolution—what they call Anurella—offers a unique chance.
On the eve of the first anniversary of his presidency, Sri Lanka feels palpably different. Banners in Colombo proclaim “One Year of Clean Sri Lanka.” Civil servants speak, cautiously but hopefully, of less interference in appointments. Farmers note that fertiliser subsidies are being allocated transparently.
Yet challenges abound. The economy is far from fully recovered, public patience is not infinite, and entrenched elites are regrouping. Corruption, critics argue, is not eradicated but relocated. Judicial reforms remain incomplete. And some accuse the NPP of relying too heavily on symbolism over structural change.
Still, for ordinary Sri Lankans, the mood is unmistakably altered. Where despair once prevailed, there is tentative pride. Where the ballot was once a ritual, it has become a weapon.
“This is not Anura’s revolution alone,” says Shanti, the garment worker. “It is ours. He only carries it.”
The word “revolution” conjures images of sudden rupture. But Sri Lanka’s uprising is unfolding in slow motion, through policies, reforms, and a stubborn refusal to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Whether the experiment succeeds remains to be seen. But for now, Anurella is shorthand for something rare in South Asia: the belief that democracy, even when battered, can regenerate itself; that a people long divided can unite behind a common cause; and that ballots, not bullets, can write history.
-By LeN Political Correspondent
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by (2025-09-16 18:27:08)
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