Daily Times

With a record 39 candidates daring to put their names in the hat and the presidential election going to a historic second count (because no candidate managed to secure a clear majority), Sri Lanka finally chose Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Sunday to lead its fragile economy away from the shadows of the worst crisis in decades.

Call it the charm of his decisive pledges or the spark to give his battered nation a new hope for a better tomorrow, Mr Dissanayake offers those who had lost all confidence in the old guard with a leftist approach.

The aspiration to choose someone who had nothing to do with the tainted history of the Rajapaksa family, which had held the power for 15 years and had overwhelming contributed to unprecedented economic mismanagement puts the onus on the president-elect to stay true to his promises of good governance and fight against corruption. However, simply capitalising on public frustration is not enough.

The coming days would show how after their patience wears thin, the masses adopt an unforgiving stance towards everyone. Between developing agriculture, reviving the IT sector, and continuing with the IMF deal but striving to reduce the severity of the austerity measures, there is a lot that he has talked about, which now needs to be translated into tangible actions.

The country may have come a long way from the doom and gloom that had only two years ago forced demonstrators to march on key buildings and force the then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country, but still, a return to business as usual would demand unrelenting commitment to progress from the new government.

Because Mr Dissanayake did not possess a political lineage like some of his rivals and managed to deliver an unprecedented political upset despite having just three members in the previous parliament, a nervous but tremendous energy buzzes in Colombo. The dynamics between a party rooted in Marxism-Leninism and a textbook capitalist structure would prove to be a captivating aspect in the days ahead. *