Trading in bullets for ballots in Sri Lanka

After failed attempts to topple the Sri Lankan government, a rebel group has come to power through peaceful means, with the help of a youth movement.

A former rebel group in Sri Lanka that had twice tried to overthrow the government by force has come to power through peaceful means brought about by an uprising of youth. 

Crushed by government soldiers during two bloody attempts to topple the government in the past half a century, the National People’s Power (NPP), an offshoot of the former Marxist-rebel People’s Liberation Front or JVP, swept the 14 November parliamentary elections. In doing so, it ousted its traditional political foes.

The success was due, in great part, to the participation of Gen Z — and to a smaller extent millennials. Their votes helped the NPP win 160 parliamentary seats out of a total of 225. It took its all-island vote base from just 3.8% in 2020 to over 60%.

Even NPP leaders were surprised by the outcome in which the party won a two-thirds majority of the House. 

“In the society, there was a belief that two-thirds majority power should not be given to any party,” Tilvin Silva, General Secretary of the still existing JVP, told reporters soon after the election results came in. “Even though we didn’t ask for power exceeding two-thirds majority of 159 seats, people gave us that power; therefore, we have a huge responsibility to use that exceeding power carefully.” 

Young people demand change.

The NPP win wouldn’t have been as sweet if not for the system change demanded by the youth. Thousands took to the streets back in March 2020 to demand that the country’s political hierarchy step down. 

That mass protest, triggered by months of shortages and queues for food, fuel and medicine due to an acute economic crisis, galvanised the whole of Sri Lanka. Then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and his cabinet of ministers resigned. Thousands of young professionals left the country, which was on the brink of a huge economic collapse, seeking jobs overseas as smaller companies crumbled and jobs were lost.

According to political analyst Jehan Perera, the NPP victory is a direct outcome of that protest dubbed ‘Aragalaya’ (Struggle) which was led by the youth.

“While people suffered waiting in queues for fuel, food and medicines, it was the young that swarmed into the streets in thousands,” he said. The people’s revolt in Bangladesh in June 2024, also by young people, was fashioned on the lines of the Sri Lankan example.

Generational change

Sri Lankans frustrated by widespread corruption, mismanagement and abuse of power for more than half a century, were attracted by the ascetic lifestyle of the NPP leadership, compared to the previous lot who behaved as if they owned the country by winning an election, Perera said.

“The earlier rulers came from the feudal class and while they trotted around wearing western clothes, the NPP leaders were dressed simply in shirt and trousers,” he said.

At age 55, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won last September’s presidential election as the NPP candidate, was able to connect with the younger generation, compared to previous leaders who were much older, including then-members of parliament, one of whom was over 80.

The two political parties that had ruled for the past 50 years — the United National Party and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party — were wiped out at last week’s election.

The JVP was involved in two bloody attempts to overthrow the government — first in 1971 and then in 1987–89 — in both cases crushed by government soldiers. 

Peaceful transitions around the world

It is the latest example of a former rebel group emerging as a political party and contesting elections. In Nepal, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-UML) fought a long civil war from 1996 to 2006 but now has 78 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives and joined the Nepali Congress (NC) with nearly 90 seats to form a new “national consensus government” which currently rules the country.

In El Salvador, the militant FMLN and Salvadoran government signed a peace accord in 1992, after 11 years of conflict, and the FMLN began its transformation into a political party. It has since had significant success. By 2000, it was the largest party in the legislative assembly and won the presidency in 2009 and 2014.

However in the 2024 general election, FMLN lost all seats in both the legislative and municipal branches, according to media reports.

In South Sudan, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) fought a 22-year war against the Sudanese government, which ended with a peace agreement in 2005 and South Sudan’s independence in 2011. Following independence, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the political wing of the SPLA, won power and then in 2012, as a consequence of South Sudanese independence, SPLM became the new country’s governing political party and the SPLA the country’s army. 

Other examples of political transformation of military groups include the Sinn Féin Party in Ireland, which was the political arm of the Irish Republican Army and the African National Congress in South Africa led by Nelson Mandela who became president after spending 25 years as a political prisoner.

Now the hard work begins.

It will be a challenge in Sri Lanka for the new government to meet the aspirations of all the three main communities in the country: Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. The Tamils, in particular, have been seeking self-determination or more powers to rule in areas where they are in a majority. 

The Tamils live mostly in the north and east of the country and were enmeshed in a bloody insurrection by the Tamil-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam which fought government soldiers in the two regions for nearly 30 years. Its defeat in May 2009 came at a huge cost; more than 40,000 rebels, soldiers and civilians were killed during the decades-long conflict and the economy shattered.

Since then, Tamil political parties have dominated the two regions hoping that the parties will win more political power through peaceful elections. The NPP broke that trend too, winning three out of five seats in the Northern Tamil bastion town of Jaffna and in other areas dominated by the Tamils.

The National Peace Council (NPC) said this broad-based support for the government, spanning all regions of the country — including areas predominantly inhabited by ethnic and religious minorities — demonstrates a significant step towards national unity. 

There were many firsts from an election steered by the country’s young generation. The number of parliamentary seats won by a single party was the first in history. More than 21 women were elected, 19 from the NPP. 

And there were more than 160 new faces in parliament resulting in parliamentary authorities hurriedly preparing a three-day crash course on parliamentary rules and governance.

Can the change last?

In an article posted online, political commentator Tisaranee Gunasekera said the breadth and the depth of the NPP/JVP’s parliamentary victory was unimagined and unimaginable in rational and historical terms. 

“The proportional representation system [system of voting for party and candidates] was crafted as a tsunami wall against electoral tidal waves,” Gunasekera wrote. “Yet the NPP/JVP breached it, gaining the supposedly impossible two-thirds plus nine more seats. And in the parliamentary electoral annals of Sri Lanka, no political formation has prevailed in the Sinhala South, the Tamil North, the Muslim East and the Malayaga Tamil Upcountry simultaneously. The NPP/JVP achieved that feat as well.”

Soon after swearing in a new cabinet of 21 ministers, President Dissanayake said there are two types of responsibilities: one is for the aims and expectations of the public, the other is for the party’s movement. 

He noted people’s fear that the party’s political success would lead to domination. “In our country, unlimited powers have often led to results unfavourable to the public,” Dissanayake said. “We must be vigilant to avoid such outcomes.”

It remains to be seen whether the new regime will live up to its promise of clean government, clear the public service of corruption and ensure the rule of law applies equally to everyone.

If not, perhaps the young people will rise up again. 

Three questions to consider:

1. Why did the majority of people elect a political party that had violent roots?
2. What role did youth play in the recent parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka?
3. Which do you think is more effective for long term change — peaceful protests or armed revolts and why?

Feizal Samath is a Sri Lankan who covered the war between Tamil Tiger guerrillas and government troops, and the leftist insurgency attempting to overthrow the government, for Reuters. A journalist for nearly four decades, he more recently has covered economic development in Sri Lanka for a newspaper in Colombo. A social activist and guitarist, Samath founded a concert series that has raised millions of rupees for children’s charities.