Colombo, September 22 - After the Election Commission announces the NPP presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake as the winner of the 2024 presidential election later today, Daily Mirror learns that Dissanayake will take oaths as the new president at a simple ceremony held at the Presidential Secretariat tomorrow morning (23).
The Indian High Commissioner, Santos Jha, met with President-elect Anura Kumara Dissanayake at the National People's Power office in Battaramulla this evening.
Jha extended greetings from India’s leadership and congratulated Dissanayake on his electoral victory, emphasizing India's commitment to strengthening ties for the prosperity of both nations, the High Commissioner stated in a post on 'X'.
This meeting followed Dissanayake's announcement as president by the Election Commission chairman.
Read on to learn more about the island nation's new President.
Early life and student politics
1. Dissanayake was born into a lower-middle-class family in Thambuttegama village in Anuradhapura district, around 170 km away from the country's capital Colombo. Despite his father being a daily wager and his mother a homemaker, they managed to educate their son, who graduated with a science degree from the University of Kelaniya.
2. Dissanayake's active participation in student politics on the campus led him to join the JVP's anti-government armed uprising between 1987 and 89 against the "imperialist and capitalist" regime of then Presidents Jayawardene and R Premadasa.
Mainstream politics
3. The Marxist leader rose to the position of national organiser of the Socialist Students Association in 1995 and was later appointed to the JVP's central working committee. In 1998, he became a member of JVP's political bureau.
4. In 2000, Dissanayake became a member of Parliament by contesting the Presidential elections through the nationalist list. While JVP supported President Kumaratunga's administration, his party later aligned with Sinhala nationalists in 2002 to oppose peace negotiations with the Tamil rebel group LTTE, fighting an armed uprising against the Sinhala-dominated government in Colombo.
5. The JVP rose to prominence in the 2004 presidential elections after forming an alliance with Mahinda Rajapaksa's United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). The front campaigned explicitly on an anti-ceasefire stance with the LTTE.