By Harsh V. Pant
Sri Lanka’s surprising election result will have complex effects on the India-China-Sri Lanka strategic triangle.
Last week, in a stunning blow to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan voters opted for his former colleague Maithripala Sirisena to end a decade-long regime that has been increasingly marked by allegations of nepotism, corruption, and authoritarianism. Rajapaksa, after having defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), won an overwhelming mandate for himself and his party in the 2010 elections. The LTTE had been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for minority ethnic Tamils after decades of discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese majority. Though the civil war in Sri Lanka, which lasted for more than 25 years and claimed over 100,000 lives, ended in 2009, the country still remains bitterly divided and reconciliation efforts have faltered. When the war ended in 2009, there was an opportunity for the ethnic communities to reconcile and the government was expected to implement measures to address the problems faced by the country’s minorities, particularly by Tamils. That did not happen.
It was Rajapaksa who had called for elections in January 2015, a full 16 months ahead of schedule. His confidence stemmed from the fact that under his leadership the civil war ended in 2009, term limits for the presidency were removed in 2010, a wave of infrastructure investment poured in, and the country’s economy is experiencing a still-rising peace dividend. The Sri Lankan economy has seen robust annual growth at 6.4 percent over the course of 2003 to 2012, well above its regional peers. Following the end of the civil conflict in May 2009, growth rose initially to 8 percent, largely reflecting a “peace dividend,” and underpinned by strong private consumption and investment. While growth was mostly private sector driven, public investment contributed through large infrastructure investment, including post war reconstruction efforts in the North and Eastern provinces. Growth was around 7 percent in 2013, driven by a rebound in the service sector, which accounts for approximately 60 percent of GDP.
Economic prosperity has been broadly shared, with Sri Lanka experiencing a big decline in poverty between 2002 and 2009 – from 23 percent to 9 percent of the population. There is anticipation that Sri Lanka’s per capita income will increase sufficiently in the next two to three years that it will become defined by the World Bank as a middle income country.
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