Sri Lanka’s Next President May Face Uphill Battle

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Anura Kumara Dissanayake surges to victory in Sri Lanka’s presidential election, the United States hosts the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue leaders’ summit, and Pakistan appoints Asim Malik as its next spy chief.

Meet Sri Lanka’s Next President

Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s victory in Sri Lanka’s presidential election on Saturday granted the public’s abiding wish for a fresh political start. Dissanayake ran on a pledge to do away with corrupt and dynastic politics. He has no links to the country’s powerful political families, and his party was involved in the protest movement to oust then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.

As he settles into office, Dissanayake can count on public support in his ambitious effort to clean up politics. But his status as the change candidate will also present him with significant obstacles in his dealings with three key groups: the political opposition, the business community, and the country’s religious minorities.

Dissanayake is a more complex figure than some depictions suggest. Headlines describe him as a Marxist; in the 1970s and ’80s, his Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party waged violent campaigns against those it called imperialists and capitalists. But Dissanayake is no revolutionary: He has renounced that past and participated in the system that his party once opposed.

Dissanayake, 55, has been a member of Sri Lanka’s Parliament for more than two decades and briefly served as a cabinet minister in 2004-05. Despite his anti-corruption plank, he is not a traditional populist, either: He supports free trade and assistance from international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

However, Dissanayake is still strikingly different from most of Sri Lanka’s political class. Three of his main opponents on Saturday reflected that: They included a six-time prime minister and incumbent president, an opposition leader and son of a former president, and a Rajapaksa scion.  Dissanayake’s anti-corruption plank makes him a maverick by Sri Lankan standards, and the JVP has only three seats in Parliament.

This is also where Dissanayake faces a challenge: Sri Lanka’s Parliament is currently stacked against him. A party led by the Rajapaksa family holds a majority, with 145 of the 225 seats. The party of opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, one of Dissanayake’s main election opponents, holds another 54 seats.

Like many populists, Dissanayake has been uncompromising toward his political rivals, suggesting little desire to reach across the aisle. As a result, many of these opponents may not be keen to help him out with legislation. This week, Dissanayake dissolved Parliament and called early legislative elections in November; these polls could boost his party’s parliamentary clout but won’t necessarily stop rivals from trying to obstruct his agenda.

Dissanayake may have an uphill battle with a business community that is nervous about his Marxist past—and his current positions on the economy, which are unorthodox compared with those of his recent predecessors. Sri Lankan political experts expect Dissanayake to pursue protectionist measures, including efforts to spearhead more domestic production while favoring small and medium enterprises.

Another concern for the business community is Dissanayake’s long-standing vow to renegotiate Sri Lanka’s current IMF deal so that it eases hardships on the poor—potentially risking tensions between Colombo and a donor that it can’t afford to lose.

Finally, Dissanayake will need to win over Sri Lanka’s minority communities—especially Tamils, who make up Sri Lanka’s largest ethnic minority. Many people haven’t forgotten the JVP’s unconditional support for the brutal government campaign against Tamils during Sri Lanka’s two-decade civil war. In the election, Premadasa had earned key endorsements from the Tamil community.

Dissanayake’s best option is the simplest one: to engage with his skeptics. In his inauguration speech on Monday, he called for unity. His legislative agenda will have a better chance of success if he is also willing to reach across the aisle. Meeting with the business community and foreign investors to clarify his positions and hear their concerns would also help. Frequent outreach with Tamils and other minority groups would send further reassuring signals.

This outreach wouldn’t just be good politics for Dissanayake. With the economy still reeling, doing more to ensure unity in the face of such a serious challenge would also serve national interests.

Read more: FP columnist Sumit Ganguly analyzes what Sri Lanka’s election means for India, writing that bilateral ties should survive yet another political shake-up in New Delhi’s neighborhood.

What We’re Following

Biden hosts Quad leaders. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue held its annual leaders’ summit on Saturday—this time in U.S. President Joe Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. New Delhi was scheduled to host, but with concerns about Biden’s availability to travel ahead of the U.S. elections, Washington took over the duties as world leaders descended on New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly summit.

That the Quad—which comprises Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—has held an annual, in-person summit for four consecutive years perhaps attests to its strengths. The joint statement from the leaders’ summit featured few surprises, announcing new initiatives that build on long-standing areas of cooperation, from clean energy to maritime security.

What did stand out was the wording about threats in the South China Sea: It used some of the strongest language to date in describing increasing provocations there, although it did not specifically name Beijing. Quad statements rarely mention China, but it is the main reason why the group has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years.

Pakistan appoints new spy chief. On Monday, Pakistan state broadcaster PTV News announced that Lt. Gen. Asim Malik had been appointed the new director-general of Pakistan’s main spy organization, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI chief is often regarded as the second-most powerful position in Pakistan—followed only by the army chief. Malik, who replaces Nadeem Anjum, will assume his new role on Sept. 30.

It’s easy to understand why Malik was selected for the post. He is an expert on foreign policy: He holds a Ph.D. that focused on U.S.-Pakistan relations from Pakistan’s National Defence University; like many senior Pakistani generals, Malik also studied in the United States. He has commanded troops in Pakistan’s Baluchistan and Waziristan regions, areas hit hard by the recent surge in terrorist attacks.

This operational experience will be particularly important given that Pakistan’s reinvigorated counterterrorism strategy will likely feature stepped-up intelligence activities.

Although Pakistan’s leadership is comfortable with Malik, he will likely raise concerns among the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Malik previously served as adjutant general at the country’s military headquarters and reportedly led an investigation into attacks on military facilities by PTI supporters last year. The combination of Malik and Army Chief Asim Munir could bring fresh steps to tighten the screws on PTI.

Yunus seeks support at UNGA. Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government and a Nobel laureate, arrived in New York on Monday for the high-level week of the U.N. General Assembly, taking a commercial flight to get there. It marks his first overseas trip since taking over the post last month, after the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina under pressure.

On Tuesday, Yunus met Biden, with Bangladeshi reports indicating that the U.S. president offered his “full support” to the interim government. It was the first time that the top leaders of the United States and Bangladesh held a formal bilateral meeting since then-President Bill Clinton met Hasina in Dhaka in 2000.

Yunus will hold bilateral meetings with other world leaders this week—though not Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who left New York on Monday—and he will speak at UNGA on Friday.

The U.N. summit offers a critical platform for Yunus, who can draw on his global prominence to make appeals for international assistance to back his efforts to stabilize Bangladesh’s economy, undertake institutional reforms, and assist a growing population of Rohingya refugees. Some of his first bilateral meetings in New York were with top donors, including the United States, the World Bank, and the IMF.

Under the Radar

Voters are currently going to the polls in a milestone election in Indian-administered Kashmir. The legislative election in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir is taking place in several phases running from Sept. 18 to Oct. 1. It’s the first regional election to take place in nearly a decade, as well as the first since India revoked Muslim-majority Kashmir’s special autonomous status—laid out in Article 370 of the Indian Constitution—in 2019.

Jammu and Kashmir is broken into two administrative divisions. The Jammu area is majority Hindu, and candidates who support Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are expected to do well there. Meanwhile, in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, the BJP is deeply unpopular but could still benefit from the large number of independents and Islamist parties contesting seats, which could split the vote among Muslim voters.

New Delhi has a lot at stake in Kashmir’s election. Since the revocation of Article 370, the Indian government has sought to argue that the region—which remains disputed territory between India and Pakistan—has been “normalized,” with less violence and more stability. India has hosted G-20 meetings in Kashmir to promote tourism and has invited foreign diplomats to observe voting there.

On Wednesday, a group of diplomats was expected in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir’s largest city, as voters went to the polls. However, despite a decrease in militancy, the Kashmir Valley remains troubled, with continued government crackdowns against the local population. Many residents are uncomfortable providing their candid views about the election to foreign reporters, declining interviews or not giving their full names.

FP’s Most Read This Week

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• Will Hezbollah Choose to Keep Its Word—or Its Arsenal? by Hanin Ghaddar

Regional Voices

In the Print, journalist Karanjeet Kaur argues that India’s education system is partly to blame for the tragic case of a young Ernst & Young employee at the firm’s Pune office who allegedly died from overwork: “We are not taught to question or think or even stand up for ourselves,” she writes. “But this approach isn’t failing to prepare us for the challenges of the modern workplace. It is actively grooming us for exploitation.”

In the Express Tribune, Saira Samo laments the low literacy rate among Pakistani women, which at 49.6 percent is the lowest in South Asia. “Demoting women in education in the name of gender-based disparity and stereotypical beliefs shatters the fabric of Pakistani society, in sheer disobedience of the Constitution,” she writes. “As Pakistan strives for socio-political stability and growth, it must prioritise the education of its women as a foremost agenda.”

A Kuensel editorial decries Bhutan’s failed efforts to combat tobacco use: “The rise in tobacco imports over the past few years reveals that we have not only lost the battle to control tobacco, but have also given up the fight altogether,” it argues. “[M]any will suffer if our policies fail to prevent youth from adopting this harmful habit at an early age.”