THE MALIMAWA GOVERNMENT Part 1
Posted on May 22nd, 2026
KAMALIKA PIERIS
In September 2024, for the first time, a rural lad was voted into the highest position in the land, a position which snobs thought should be filled only by a Colombo based ‘kalu sudda’. Anura Kumara Dissanayake ‘s appointment as President, made the non-snobs very happy. We had a ‘Tanamalvila kollek ‘ on our television screen some time ago, now we have a ‘Tambuttegama kollek’ as our President, they said.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake came into politics through the JVP. We must, therefore, look first at the JVP. JVP is associated with two brutal movements, of the 1970s and 1980s, which killed many people and paralyzed the country. The government suppressed both insurgencies very successfully.
Contrary to what was expected, JVP did not disappear after that. Instead JVP quietly transformed itself from an insurgent movement into a main stream political party. We were determined to rebuild the party at the earliest opportunity, said Tilvin Silva. between 1990 and 1994, we were unable to regroup without risking arrest. The political situation changed by 1994. We decided it was time to re-enter popular politics and we began to regroup.
JVP did not have any difficulty in re-entering the political mainstream, observed analysts. JVP won one seat in 1994 Parliament election, 10 in 2000 and 16 in 2001. Also a number of seats in local government.
JVP entered into coalition with the major political parties, who welcomed the JVP, probably because of the vote bank they controlled. JVP entered into coalitions with PA, SLFP, UNP and contested Parliament elections with them. JVP astutely linked with the winning political party at several general elections. The first was with President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance (PA) in September, 2001. JVP had 10 members in that Parliament. Anura Kumara Dissanayake was one of them.
JVP contested the 2004 April Parliamentary election in coalition with PA/SLFP. 36 JVP candidates were elected. Some candidates polled the best results in their electoral districts. JVP also had a lot of preferential votes at this election.
JVP was entitled to four ministerial portfolios in 2004. Kurunegala District MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake became the Agriculture, Lands and Irrigation Minister. Bimal Rathnayake was named AKD’s deputy. Vijitha Herath, Gampaha District was given the Cultural Affairs portfolio with Badulla district MP Samantha Vidyaratne as deputy. Anuradhapura district MP Lal Kantha received the Rural Economy portfolio with Sunil Handunetti as deputy. Fisheries and Aquatic resources portfolio went to Galle District MP Chandrasena Wijesinghe.
At the 2005 presidential election, the JVP threw its weight behind Mahinda Rajapaksa. If not for the JVP’s support, Mahinda Rajapaksa would not have won, said Shamindra Ferdinando. In 2010, JVP joined the Democratic National Alliance that contested the 2010 parliamentary election. Dissanayake was a National List MP of the DNA. From 2015 to 2019 the JVP joined the UNP.
In 2019 the JVP decided to go it alone, led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake. JVP has always had a strong presence in the state university system. Universities provided the JVP with a large number of energetic young activists. They included Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Anura Kumara Dissanayake had been in JVP politics from his university days. He helped to establish pro-JVP students’ unions in the universities. Anura Kumara was on the Central Committee of the JVP in 1997. In February 2014, Anura Kumara became the leader of the JVP succeeding Somawansa Amarasinghe.
Anura Kumara entered Parliament in 2000. He was in the 2001 and 2004 Parliaments and served as Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation from 2004 to 2005. In 2008, he was appointed the leader of the JVP in Parliament. in 2010 He entered Parliament through the national list. In 2015 He was elected to Parliament from the Colombo District . He served as Chief Opposition Whip from 2015 to 2018 .NPP put forward Dissanayake as Presidential Candidate in 2019. Dissanayake came third with 3% of the vote, receiving 418,553 votes.
In 2019, JVP set up a new political alliance, National People’s Power (NPP), also known as Jathika Jana Balavegaya, led by the JVP. It contained 20 other groups, which were a mix of political parties, worker unions, women’s rights groups, youth organizations, trade unions and civil society organizations.
Critics observed, however, that while the NPP calls itself a dynamic political movement comprising 21 diverse groups, the only notable political force within the alliance, is the same JVP founded by Wijeweera. This JVP, remains the main decision maker, said analysts.JVP leader Dissanayake was elected as NPP leader as well.There hasn’t been a previous instance of the same person heading two recognized political parties, observed Shamindra Ferdinando.
JVP has decided to rebrand and presented itself as a new political avatar as the National People’s Power (NPP) n 2019, critics said .This is the first step by the JVP to acquire an image that would appeal to all classes, ethnicities and religious groups .JVP has also distanced itself, at least publicly, from the bloody politics of its leader Wijeweera and come out as a force that is willing to adapt to changing times, they observed.
President Dissanayake has publicly apologized for the JVP violence of the past and vowed that there would be no return to the days when just hearing the party’s name was enough to make people run indoors and bolt the locks of their homes.
JVP is now a party with a split identity with those within its inner circle remaining committed to revolutionary ideals, analysts observed. The JVP’s six-member, all-male politburo remains the main decision-making body, with its decisions shrouded in secrecy. The General Secretary of the JVP, Tilvin Silva, though holding no official position in the Malimawa government, remains the powerful figure behind the movement, one of the few remaining links to the JVP of Wijeweera.
There is now some doubt as to whether the last two election victories, 2024 and 2025 are truly JVP victories. There is extremely weak JVP voter alliance to NPP, said Nirmal Devasiri. JVP has only a tiny fraction of the massive voter attraction that the NPP enjoyed in the two recent elections.
The public on the other hand eagerly embraced the new political party and its platitude uttering leader. Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the Presidential election of 2024 with 574,179 votes. This was followed by a sweeping win for the NPP at the general election of 2025. The public elected an untested party with a landslide.
in 2025, NPP ran a high-gloss, foreign-funded, election campaign to market its policies as a ‘new dawn’, critics observed. JVP had not lost its supreme organizational ability. These skills were widely instrumental in helping to carry Anura Kumara Dissanayake to the presidency last year, propelling the party from virtual obscurity to high visibility. NPP was leaps and bounds ahead of the rest, said observers.
Party cadres told us how they had been organizing at village level months before the date of the presidential election was announced. During the election campaign, party members went canvassing house-to-house in the same neighborhood several times. This was so that they would be able to talk to inmates of houses who may not have been present when they had gone earlier. By this method, they made sure to cover every home. It was old-fashioned campaigning perfected to a fine art, apart from the glitzy mass rallies that attracted media coverage.
Another facet of this organizational ability was the party’s communication strategy, which was also far ahead of the others. Social media, in particular, was used expertly to advance its narrative. Official statements from the party leadership in response to various matters were also mostly fast, clear and to the point.
Voting in Jaffna showed a phenomenal spike in the NPP’s popularity. From a mere 7% during the presidential election, it shot up to 25%. NPP had set up a permanent party office there. Bimal Ratnayake and Ramalingam Chandrasekaran, former JVP activist from the plantation sector had taken up residence in Jaffna and carried out the NPP campaign.
At the General election of 2025, NPP set an all-time record by securing 159 member seats in Parliament. This was a significant win. NPP drew near-unanimous support from the public servants, as indicated by the very high percentage of postal votes polled.
The support for NPP came from across the country as shown by the spread of their victorious candidates, noted commentators. The south was openly in support of the JVP/NPP and victory there was expected. But NPP also bagged the entire Christian Belt. Wattala, Ja-Ela, Katana, Negombo, Wennappuwa, Naththandiya and Chilaw. In addition, electorates with a significant Christian population including Moratuwa, Dehiwala and Colombo West also voted for NPP.
NPP obtained a sizeable number of votes in North and East. NPP won two seats in the Vanni district and got around 20.37% votes. They bagged three seats in Jaffna with 24.85%.They won two seats in Trincomalee, getting around 42.48% of the votes in the district. In the Nuwara Eliya district, the NPP obtained 105,057 votes (22.175%), while in the Batticaloa district, they polled 38,832 (12.19%), and in the Trincomalee district, their tally was 49,886 (20.83%).
But these two electoral wins are not as rosy as they look. Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s victory as President was not an impressive win. He failed to get 51% of the main vote in the first count. He was declared President only after the preferential votes were counted. This was the first time that preferential vote was included in a Sri Lanka election, and it was a novel experience for Sri Lanka, observed the media.
The wave of popular support Dissanayake claimed to have was not as huge as it was made out to be. The voter turnout was a high 79% and AKD polled 42.31%. In some districts Sajith Premadasa (SJB) and Ranil Wickremesinghe (UNP) between them, polled more votes than Dissanayake. Premadasa retained the Nuwara-Eliya, Jaffna, Vanni, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Digamadulla seats which he won in 2019 and also secured Badulla district which he lost in 2019.
The media said that Anura Kumara Dissanayake got 55% of the votes in the Presidential election in September 2024. That calculation is based only on the total votes cast, not the total votes registered. There was a large gap between the total registered vote and the actual votes cast.
The Commissioner General of Elections said that out of the 17.1 million voters, approximately 3.5 million (21.54 %) had not used their votes at the 2024 Presidential Election. The total registered electors at the election were 17,140,354. Total votes polled: 13,619,916 (79.46% turnout). Total valid votes: 13,319,616. Rejected votes: 300,300 (2.2%).
The General Election of November 2024 was no better. The result was: Total registered electors 17,140,354. Total Polled: 11,815,246 (68.93% voter turnout). Valid Votes: 11,148,006. Rejected Votes: 667,240. This means that out of 17.1 million registered voters, Jathika Jana Balawegaya only got 6,863,136 votes. That is less than 50%, it is certainly not 68%. The 68% was calculated from the votes cast, not the total registered vote.
NPP’s support is much more unstable than its two-thirds parliamentary majority suggests,said analysts. Support came mainly from anger about the economic crisis rather than positive support for NPP policies. It is a weak support based.
The columnist Ryp Van Winkle also thought so. He said: My Dear Anura Kumara sahodaraya, It is a remarkable turnaround. Just a few years ago, you and your rathu sahodarayas were being ridiculed by your opponents as the ‘three percent’ party. That was after you polled just over three per cent at the last presidential poll and only a little more than that at the last general election
So, Anura Kumara sahodaraya, it looks as if most people who are disappointed and disgusted with decades of rule by these parties and the people in them looked around and thought that they should give your sahodarayas a chance. At least, they seem to think, you are not tainted with corruption.That would explain what is being described as the ‘rella’
The ‘rella’ that you are experiencing right now appears to be founded on similar reasons. Most people are disappointed with most parties, so they want to vote for you. It would be better if they are voting for you because of what you have to offer instead of voting for you just because you are not corrupt.
In terms of your policies, many wish to know what your exact position is about key issues such as the economy and the devolution of power. Will you work with the private sector or try to stifle them.
You have transitioned from the JVP and its ‘seenuwa’ symbol to the Jathika Jana Balawegaya and its ‘maalimawa’. Is this a clever attempt to re-brand the JVP and sell the same product under a different label, because the JVP brings back old memories, asked Ryp Van Winkle. (continued)
REFERENCES
Dilrook Kannangara https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/10/07/why-the-npp-won-the-entire-christian-belt/
Editorial 23.9.24 https://island.lk/passing-grade-for-akd/#google_vignette
Javid Yusuf https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240929/columns/two-plus-two-does-not-always-make-four-at-an-election-572802.html
Nirmal Dewasiri, Polity 2025 vol 13 issue 1 p 14 ,15