When the national list for the 2020 general election was being prepared, and when a candidate was nominated for the national list MP position, the JVP selected Harini Amarasuriya from among the prominent academics and professors in the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA). The JVP chose Harini because of her good understanding of the relationships between the United States and other Western countries. Although candidates with a leftist background were proposed for the national list MP position, the JVP decided to appoint Harini.
The JVP’s relations with the U.S. and other Western countries had grown during the period when the U.S. was implementing a plan to overthrow Mahinda’s government in 2015. During this time, FUTA launched a massive protest movement against Mahinda’s government, and Harini played a major role in it. She began working closely with the JVP during this period. Harini entered Summerville High School in the U.S. in 1988 under the Foreign Exchange Student Programme, where she studied for about a year. The host family involved in the programme shared their sentiments upon hearing the news of her appointment as Prime Minister.
“Our family went crazy when we heard the news,” Patricia Harrelson, Amarasuriya’s host mum, who now lives in Jamestown, said on Monday in a phone interview. “We had a group text that was going nuts for about three hours; it was so exciting.”
Wayne deGennaro, who taught English at Summerville and was the Academic Decathlon coach when Amarasuriya was on the Summerville team, said on Monday, “There’s a capital W on that ‘wow’… Her kindness and concern for getting along with others were obvious then as they are now. She was accepting of the ideas of others and genuinely cared for the success of her classmates and teammates.”
Amarasuriya was active at Summerville as an Academic Decathlete and a member of the school’s Academic Games team. She made the Summerville Honor Roll in 1988, travelled with other Summerville students to Washington, D.C., was named Best of Summerville in 1989 for creative writing, participated in the school’s American Foreign Service Programme for exchange students, and spoke at the Class of 1989’s graduation.
After completing her education, Harini was connected to a job at an American non-governmental organisation (NGO), where she was a senior staff member. Her connections with the U.S. and Western countries were strategically used by the JVP to transform it from a third political force into a major one. Even before the presidential election, an opinion was formed in political circles in Colombo that Anura was the U.S.’s candidate.
However, after Anura became president, many thought that Harini would be appointed Foreign Minister, but she did not receive the position. Instead, the role of Foreign Minister went to Vijitha Herath, a member of the JVP’s political bureau. Though many expected Vijitha Herath to become Prime Minister, it was Harini who took the post.
When Anura became president, the Russian ambassador met him with a message from Russian President Putin, as the JVP’s relations with Russia were stronger than its ties with the U.S. After the Aragalaya (protests), on 21 November 2023, a high-level delegation from the Communist Party of Russia visited Sri Lanka and met with the JVP at the JVP headquarters to strengthen relations. On the JVP side, Vijitha Herath, Member of the JVP Political Bureau, and Dr Nalinda Jayatissa, Member of the Central Committee, participated. The Russian Communist Party was represented by Hugaev Rusian, the First Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the party, and Ilya Y. Klemenov, Vice-President of its Central Committee. After Anura became president, the message that Putin’s envoy brought included an invitation to the BRICS summit in Russia, according to media reports. Putin might have felt that another country had joined him against U.S. dominance. Whether Putin’s view is accurate will depend on whether Anura’s foreign policy after the general election is determined by the NPP (National People’s Power) or the JVP.
