Can President Anura Kumara Dissanayake keep his anti- corruption drive alive?

This is where the challenge becomes bigger than just political will. It becomes a question of endurance

A year into President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s administration, Sri Lankans are still weighing what has changed and what feels painfully familiar. Many of the promises made during the campaign, from cost-of-living relief to reforms in the North and East remain works in progress, and in some areas, barely that.

But there is one front on which the President has shown a level of determination that stands out and that is the fight against corruption.

For a country exhausted by decades of political rot, even a glimpse of accountability feels almost unusual. We have lived through governments that openly tolerated corrupt ministers, protected their friends, and found new ways to allow public money to quietly disappear. It became so ordinary that people stopped being shocked. The commissions, the inflated contracts, the “cuts,” the whispered deals in the corridors of power; well, all of it turned into a way of life, something that citizens complained about but also expected.

So, when this administration began opening files that had long gathered dust, when people with political clout suddenly found themselves questioned, arrested, or compelled to explain their wealth, there was a sense that something different was happening.

But that leads us to the more important question… Can President Anura Kumara Dissanayake keep this going?

Tackling corruption is not like announcing a new development project or unveiling a policy. It is messy, it is politically costly, and it angers people who are usually very powerful. Every investigation cuts into someone’s comfort zone. Every arrest upsets networks that have thrived for decades. The President may be willing to clean up the system, but the system will not simply sit back and let him do it.

There is also the institutional reality. Sri Lanka’s investigative bodies, commissions, and oversight institutions have spent years being manipulated, weakened, or turned into tools of whoever was in power. Expecting them to suddenly transform overnight is unrealistic. Even if the President means well, and many believe he genuinely does, the machinery underneath him still carries the weight of old habits, old loyalties, and old fears.

This is where the challenge becomes bigger than just political will. It becomes a question of endurance.

Internationally too, eyes are firmly on Sri Lanka. After the economic collapse, one of the biggest demands from lenders and development partners has been transparency. Investors want to know that they aren’t stepping into a system where money vanishes halfway down the pipeline. Debt restructuring talks, foreign investment, and even basic aid programmes now come with expectations of clean governance. It is no longer enough to deliver fiery speeches about corruption. Instead, what the world wants is proof.

To be fair, the President has offered some early signs that Sri Lanka is trying to turn a corner. But goodwill, both local and international, is fragile. A slowing of the momentum, or even the perception that certain individuals are being spared, can undo months of work.

However, for the Sri Lankan citizen the fear is simple… Will this too fade away like every other anti-corruption promise in our history?

People are not expecting miracles. They are exhausted, yes, frustrated, certainly; but they are also ready to support genuine change. What they cannot tolerate is selective accountability. The minute corruption investigations start looking like political tools, the public will lose confidence. And when public trust breaks, it breaks completely.

The sustainability of this fight depends on what the President does next. He will need to strengthen laws, fix loopholes, make procurement transparent, and build systems that cannot be bent with a phone call from the right person. But even more importantly, he will need to protect the people who are doing the actual work such as the investigators, auditors and public servants who risk their careers by refusing to bend.

President Dissanayake must also be mindful of overcorrection. Anti-corruption drives often lose credibility when they start appearing vindictive or one-sided. Sri Lankans have seen this before of governments using the language of “clean politics” as a weapon, not a principle. Walking that line with fairness and restraint may be harder than any court case.

Still, despite all the uncertainties, one thing feels true and that this is the first time in years that Sri Lanka is seeing at least the beginnings of a sincere attempt to confront political corruption. It may be imperfect and slow, and at times even a media show, but it is there. And after everything the country has endured, that alone is worth acknowledging.

For now, the nation watches and waits. The President has taken the first, necessary steps. Whether he can protect this momentum, whether he can withstand the pressure, the backlash, the isolation that comes with confronting deeply rooted corruption will determine not just his political legacy but also whether Sri Lanka can finally begin rewriting a very tired chapter of its history.

The fight has begun. The harder part is keeping it alive.