Dissanayake’s win dealt a blow to a political old guard that has been widely blamed for the unprecedented economic crisis that hit the South Asian island nation two years ago.

The dramatic increase in the vote for the JVP/NPP is a product of two inter-related processes—the seething hostility and anger of broad layers of the population over the social crisis; and support for the JVP/NPP in sections of the ruling class as the means for suppressing that opposition.

Voters backed Marxist coalition leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, rejecting an old guard accused of leading the country into economic crisis.