Sri Lanka has sworn in 55-year-old leftist politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake as its new president. There was no clear winner after the first round of votes from Saturday’s election had been counted. But Dissanayake, who is commonly known by his initials AKD, emerged victorious after a count of the second-choice votes.
His election is something of a watershed. It was the first time since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948 that the presidential race was decided by a second round of counting after either of the top two candidates failed to win the mandatory 50% of the vote. And it was also the only time that voters have elected a candidate who does not belong to the country’s traditional ruling elite.
Sri Lanka has long been held in the tight grip of a handful of powerful political families. The Rajapaksa dynasty, for example, had dominated Sri Lankan politics for well over two decades before mass protests over a severe economic crisis unseated the country’s leader, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in 2022.
