Sri Lanka presidential polls: Leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake holds edge over Sajith Premadasa

[Music] [Music] Sri Lanka is heading for one of its crucial presidential elections with 39 candidates in the free the 1.7 CR people of Sri Lanka will cast their votes on September 21 to elect the ninth president president ranal vikas Singa of the United National Party UNP is contesting as an independent he's backed by Major section of legislators from former president mahinda rajap pakas Sri Lanka pan peramuna also in the freay are opposition leaders sajit premadasa leftist leader anura Kumar and mahinda's Son namal rajaka s Sami J BAGI has aligned with some of the prominent parties and has support of the Tamil and Muslim minorities the Tamil form 11% of the total votes in Sri Lanka and Muslim minorities form 99.7% of the population anura is a masses leninist leader from Janti peramuna the main constituent of the national people's power Coalition while ranal sjit and anura are Front Runners namal the youngest in the freame has made the contest tough for them he's the official slpp candidate but his chances of winning even half of the 69 lakh votes for by his uncle kabaya rajaka in 2019 appear remote another prominent face in the election is former military Chief sharat fona and then there is Nan bag bag is the activist lawyer who led the Aral protest movement in 2022 in as you [Music] after2 so after that this is the first election coming on the other hand during p 2 years uh even econom is concerned even the other sectors are concerned certain reforms Poli ter the intervention of the activities of India and us at the same time the expansion of the Liberty with prominent names in the frame and because of the absence of terrorism and polarization this election is dominated by completely different issues compared with earlier elections in 2019 the election was fought on security issues after the 2019 Easter bombings and there were only two main contenders gotabaya rajab Baka and sjit premadasa and gotabaya won with a decisive mandate but this election is being fought on the merits of each candidate an economic crisis still looms large and this election can also be considered one that is fought between establishment candidates and anti-establishment candidates this time around the voters appear confused in the rural areas outside Colombo the masses look at anura as a promising candidate while the city Elites stand by run sjit finds support largely from Farmers teachers doctors and Tamil minority both anura and sajit have promised to abolish executive presidency well I mean it is to save democracy the way we see it uh because uh opposition um comes from a very um sort of a uh troubled sort of History it has had been uh at the center of two armed insurrections 71 and 88 89 but of course they've now changed they've come to the mainstream uh and with a different name uh but a lot of people find it a find it little difficult to sort of see the jvp uh which is really the driving force of the NPP uh sort of taking a back seat in the ideology the senior most candidate in the presidential race is 75 year old rny but the iridite intellectual lacks charisma he doesn't have the backing of a strong political party most members of ral's UNP are now with sajit and a section of his supporters are from the slpp with some of the best Minds from ranel and rajap Paka camps joining him sait's strength has grown multifold his Alliance now has key leaders like patali champika raka nalaga Gava charida herat and G Perez however sajit could be handicapped by the fact that he has not really moved away from the unp's policies and ideas his critics call him an economic populist and a better version of mahinda a rational forward-looking populist who is not a racist well it's a pivotal M uh in Sri Lanka's history so I believe this election will give an opportunity for the people of Sri Lanka to make a choice a choice uh between uh a new approach fresh thinking a Visionary approach um and an Administration that will walk the talk as opposed to the same old um methodology of protecting the few who are rich uh the few who are your friends and crony capitalists whereas our approach would be serving all 22 million people in our country people also have a choice um between choosing extreme socialism and Marxism which has not proven to be um a a viable model in modern day uh governance of nation states and uh I'm very confident that people will make the right choice sajit is a neck and neck contest with anura popularly known as akd anura is the most popular candidate among the rural masses in Sri Lanka in this election he's the only candidate who doesn't belong to a political family and came up from the active student politics Movement by the Gena mukti Pamona in the late 1980s Sri Lankan politics has been evolved in with our people with lots of deceptive politics and deprivation and um the corrupt ruling and as far as the economic system is concerned highly undemocratic so at the end of the day uh especially after the independence so after 76 years um uh ruling what has left with the people is Highly Questionable so so the the people I mean in simple terms so they are deprived with everything so in that sense the context those who rule the country those who handle the economy the very few had amazed the wealth uh to maybe billions of rupees dollars at the expense of general public his party had shifted away from its anti- capitalist roots and briefly joined coalition government governments but the jvp leadership is untested as administrators the next in the race is namal Raja Paka from the all powerful Raja Paka Clan the Raja pakas until 2022 were powerful and always ran as populist but in 2022 the arala movement toppled got TOA from power and a part of their political party the Sri Lanka pajan peramuna shifted to ranal vikr Singh in the 2019 elections nal's Uncle gotabaya swept the whole country except the Tamil dominated north and east as terrorism and National Security became key issues after the Easter bombings but gotabaya inept governance and his decision to flee the country during the economic crisis discredited the rajap Paka brand and the slpp most of the slpp MPS are now with running while the intellectuals in the party have moved to Saget's sgb namal was reportedly asked to contest to keep the party alive earlier the slpp had plans to field billionaire businessman dhiga Pereira but when it became clear that it would lead to a massive loss and that the remaining spp candidat too would leave the party Nal decided to step in well I I chose because my party wanted me to contest and I think I I did the I took the right challenge I took the right decision because we are a part who believes in the Sri Lankan model and we believe that the Sri Lankan ideology should be protected and uh we believe in certain policies which which we thought most of the other parties who are contesting does not carry those policies so we as a party has a histo historical responsibility to make sure that we represent our voterbase communities people who believe in the Sri Lankan mle opinion pools and voters surveys indicate that the election results will be determined by economic issues such as cost of living inflation unemployment and high taxes while corruption among politicians and bureaucrats problems in the education sector flawed health services and a growing drug crisis are among the key concerns the candidate who can convince the voters about having the most effective platform to tackle inflation and ensure economic recovery stands the best chance to win on September 21 as of now anura and sajit have an edge even as Ronald hopes that his track record of stabilizing and running the country during the economic crisis could offer him another chance at the helm given Sri Lanka's proximity to India National Security adviser Ajit Dalal visited Columbo and held meetings with all key presidential aspirants let us wait and watch for the results