Sri Lanka president keeps finance minister role, reappoints Amarasuriya as prime minister

As the island nation in the Indian Ocean looks to emerge more fully from a crippling financial crisis, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake of Sri Lanka reappointed Harini Amarasuriya as prime minister and kept the important finance minister position. Dissanayake also reappointed veteran lawmaker Vijitha Herath to lead the foreign affairs ministry after his socialist coalition won a record 159 seats in the 225-member parliament in a general election last week.

According to two party officials who spoke to Reuters, Dissanayake, who has served as the primary finance minister since his election in September, will remain in that capacity as Sri Lanka attempts to steer clear of its greatest financial crisis since gaining independence from the British in 1948. For a third review of its $2.9 billion program, which is anticipated to release a tranche of roughly $337 million, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission is in Colombo.

The new parliament will meet on Thursday to elect a speaker and Dissanayake will present his key policy priorities to the newly minted lawmakers.

“This power comes with accountability. Accountability to the people, and this power should be wielded with humility, restraint and boundaries. I have every confidence in this cabinet and parliament,” Dissanayake said in a speech after the swearing-in.

“The real work we will be judged on begins now.”

The 2022 economic crisis that forced the 22 million-person nation into a sovereign default and caused its GDP to contract by 2.3% last year and 7.3% in 2022 was brought on by a severe shortage of foreign money. In the coming weeks, the president must publish an interim budget and figure out how to fulfill his major electoral promises of raising welfare and lowering taxes without jeopardizing the IMF program.

Dissanayake will also need to put growth on a sustainable course and finish a $12.5 billion debt adjustment with bondholders. Dissanayake, a political outsider in a nation where family parties have ruled for decades, won the island’s presidential election handily in September. But with only three members in parliament, his Marxist-leaning National People’s Power (NPP) government was forced to dissolve and run for a new mandate in last Thursday’s snap election.

Prime Minister Amarasuriya, 54, polled the second highest number of preferential votes, and is an academic with a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Edinburgh. She will also hold the education and higher education portfolios.