A shift down south: Sri Lanka's presidential election breaks new ground

The question is whether Mr Dissanayake will run the country the same way he positioned his campaign: As an outside insurgent

Sri Lanka’s presidential election, which concluded over the weekend, broke many precedents and overturned decades of political custom in the island nation. Power has usually oscillated in Sri Lanka between two main forces, led by parties of the centre-right and centre-left. Even past strongmen, like the presidents from the Rajapaksa family, began in one of those two parties. But the new president-elect in Sri Lanka, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, is instead from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which represents the leftist and nationalist fringe of Sri Lankan politics.

Further, Mr Dissanayake did not win a majority of first-choice votes,