Everything To Know About Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sri Lanka’s New President

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the left-leaning politician, has been elected as Sri Lanka’s next president on Sunday. Dissanayake sworn in today as the 9th president of the island nation. Notably, Dissanayake was declared the winner after an unprecedented second round of counting of votes.

Dissanayake, born in November 1968 in Galewela, made entry into politics as a student around the time when the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement was signed in 1987. In 1997, he was elected to the central committee of Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) - a Marxist political party. It is to be noted that JVP spearheaded an armed revolt against the Sri Lankan government from 1987 to 1989, reported the BBC.

In 2008, Anura Kumara Dissanayake became the leader of JVP. "A lot of things happened during the armed conflict that should not have happened," said the leader in an interview with BBC in 2014. The JVP, which currently has just three seats in parliament, is part of the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition that Dissanayake now heads.

The 55-year-old won the presidency by securing 42.31% of the vote in the election held on Saturday. Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa managed to get 32.76% of the vote. However, outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe took a distant third place with 17.27% of the votes polled. Notably, Anura Kumara Dissanayake first ran for president in 2019, where he won only about 3% of the vote. "The millions of eyes filled with hope and expectation push us forward, and together, we stand ready to rewrite Sri Lankan history," Sri Lanka's new president wrote on X on Sunday.