Sri Lanka’s new Marxist-leaning president swore in a 21-member Cabinet on Monday after his party secured a two-thirds parliamentary majority in last week’s election.
The margin of victory will allow President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to make sweeping reforms, including a campaign promise of a new constitution, without needing support from other parties.
Sri Lanka is struggling to emerge from the worst economic crisis in its history, having declared bankruptcy after defaulting on its external debt in 2022.
Dissanayake’s National People’s Power Party won 159 of the 225 seats in Thursday's vote.
He kept a pledge to have fewer than 25 Cabinet members, and a majority of the new ministers are first-time lawmakers.
He also reappointed Harini Amarasuriya, a female lawmaker in the NPP, as prime minister. Amarasuriya, 54, was first appointed as the prime minister in September to serve in the interim government after Dissanayake won the presidential election and that made her the first woman to head the national government in 24 years.
Dissanayake was elected president on Sept. 21 in a rejection of traditional political parties that have governed the island nation since its independence from British rule in 1948. He received 42% of the votes, fueling questions over his party’s prospects in the parliamentary elections. But the party received a large increase in support less than two months into his presidency.
Dissanayake and his government face a challenging task in steering the country out of economic turmoil.
Sri Lanka is in the middle of a bailout program with the International Monetary Fund, with debt restructuring with international creditors nearly complete.
Dissanayake said during the presidential campaign that he would propose significant changes to the targets set in the IMF deal signed by his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, saying it placed too much burden on the people. However, he has since said Sri Lanka will go along with the agreement.
Sri Lanka’s crisis was largely the result of economic mismanagement combined with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which along with militant attacks in 2019 devastated the important tourism industry. The pandemic also disrupted the flow of remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad.
The government also slashed taxes in 2019, depleting the treasury just as the virus hit. Foreign exchange reserves plummeted, leaving Sri Lanka unable to pay for imports or defend its currency, the rupee.
Sri Lanka’s economic upheaval led to a political crisis that forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign in 2022. Parliament then elected Wickremesinghe to replace him.
The economy was stabilized, inflation dropped, the rupee strengthened and foreign reserves increased under Wickremesinghe. Nonetheless, he lost the election as public dissatisfaction grew over the government’s effort to increase revenue by raising electricity bills and imposing heavy new income taxes on professionals and businesses as part of the government’s efforts to meet the IMF conditions.
Voters were also drawn by the NPP’s cry for change in the political culture and an end to corruption, because they perceived the parties that ruled Sri Lanka so far caused the economic collapse.
Dissanayake’s promise to punish members of previous governments accused of corruption and to recover allegedly stolen assets also raised people's hopes.