THE party of Sri Lanka’s new Marxist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has won a two-thirds majority in parliament, official election results showed today, providing a strong mandate for his programme of economic revival.

Mr Dissanayake’s National People’s Power Party won 159 of the 225 seats, according to the Elections Commission.

The United People’s Power Party of opposition leader Sajith Premadasa took second place with 40 seats.

Sri Lanka is struggling to emerge from the worst economic crisis in its history, having declared bankruptcy after defaulting on its external debt in 2022.

The margin of victory will enable Mr Dissanayake to carry out sweeping reforms, including a campaign promise of a new constitution, without having to rely on other parties.

He was elected president on September 21, in a rejection of the traditional political parties that have governed Sri Lanka since independence from Britain in 1948. With just 42 per cent of the votes cast, questions arose over his party’s prospects in Thursday’s parliamentary elections, but it received a large increase in support.

In a surprising and significant defeat for the traditional ethnic Tamil parties, Mr Dissanayake’s party won the Jaffna district and many other minority strongholds.

This represents a major shift in the attitude of Tamils, who have long been suspicious of leaders from the Sinhalese majority. Tamil rebels fought a civil war from 1983 to 2009 seeking a separate homeland.

Top NPP official Tilvin Silva described the victory as “complete and one with political weight,” because voters from all corners of the country had voted for a single programme. He especially thanked Tamil voters in the north.

“The people have placed immense trust on us and we must keep that trust,” Mr Silva said.

Sri Lanka is in the middle of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme, with debt restructuring with international creditors nearly complete.

Mr Dissanayake pledged during his presidential campaign to propose significant changes to the IMF targets, arguing that they placed a excessive burden on the people, but he now says that Sri Lanka will go along with the agreement.

Sri Lanka’s crisis was largely the result of economic mismanagement, combined with fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. It led to a political crisis that forced then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign in 2022.

Parliament elected Ranil Wickremesinghe to take over, but his government’s efforts to meet the IMF conditions by raising electricity bills and imposing heavy new income taxes sparked rising public anger.