Link to article: https://apnews.com/article/sri-lanka-election-politics-economic-crisis-7fd0ab2d3ed89ccac2e8cd0fdc6731bf
The Marxist-leaning Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the presidential election on Sept. 21, and on Thursday, November 14, his party had a landslide win in the Parliament. This mandate gives the President the power to enact his plans of fighting poverty and corruption in the crisis-stricken nation. Reporting from Colombo, Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez said voters had said “enough is enough”, voting overwhelmingly “to take a chance on the NPP”. The vote, she said, marked a rejection of “the same old faces, the same old parties [that] have been hoodwinking us for too long now”. Political analyst Jehan Perera said Dissanayake “has been careful and played it safe by continuing with most of the policies set by his predecessor. He has been sensitive to the concerns of the business community that any deviation from the IMF agreement could cause the economy to unravel. Those who have been reassured by the smooth transfer of power and the NPP’s restraint in its first two months in power are likely to vote in his favor. This number is likely to see an increase over the number who voted in his favor at the presidential election.”
This article is important because it shows how voters from different countries react differently to the problems that their countries have. In the USA we elected a more right leaning president due to the problems we have, but in Sri Lankan they voted for a left leaning president. In both scenarios they chose a candidate from a different party than the one that had been in power previously, making me feel like in both elections voters preferred a new person to be in charge in hopes of them fixing their problems, rather than the candidate being perfect for the job.
This relates to what we learned in class because it shows how different forms of leadership and different political ideas work for countries differently. The more left leaning policies of the Biden administration may have hurt the United States, but in Sri Lanka it may prove beneficial.