While many Sri Lankans are celebrating the electoral defeat of authoritarian former president Mahendra Rajapaksa, they acknowledge that he helped usher in an era of impressive economic growth following the end of three decades of civil war.
The future under new President Maithripala Sirisena is likely to include more rights and freedoms but his administrations economic and political development policies remain vague, say analysts.
"The new administration has not articulated a detailed policy platform, promising only to increase subsidies and welfare payments and to reduce dependence on China," Agost Benard, an analyst with Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, told Asia Focus from his office in Singapore.
"Unless the country has offsetting revenue increases or cuts in other expenditure, the planned increase in subsides and welfare payments will lead to a rise in the fiscal deficits, increasing already high debt levels."
The 63-year-old president has also promised to amend the constitution to abolish the executive presidency of the Rajapaksa era and to return to a full parliamentary system where the cabinet and parliament would make policy decisions.
"We expect the new president to make moves to restore the balance of power between the presidency, the judiciary and the legislature and reduce the influence of the Rajapaksa family," said Mr Benard.
As Sri Lanka has a history of fractious party politics rooted in religion, ethnicity or regional affiliations, policymaking in parliament could be tricky, compared with the relative stability of the iron-fisted Rajapaksa regime.
"The danger of having a very broad coalition is that policy design and implementation becomes hostage to narrow regional and political interests," said Mr Benard.
However, Wang Dehua, a professor and co-director of the Center for South Asia Studies at Tongji University, notes that constitutional and political reforms have already been under way and he sees no serious drawbacks to a strengthened parliamentary system.
"I don't think this will affect the consensus among the factions," he told Asia Focus from Shanghai. "Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has already been appointed and this signifies reducing the presidential power system in favour of the parliamentary system that has won support from the people."
Mr Wang said he foresaw no problem with stability under a Sirisena presidency, since the new president is supported not only by the people and the army, while foreign leaders and media have also responded favourably, given promises of improved human rights and freedom of expression.
"The first step taken by the government was to announce an end to media censorship and telephone tapping. The previous regime was very restrictive on the media and extremely sensitive to criticism," added Mr Benard.
ROBUST GROWTH
The Sri Lankan economy recorded robust annual growth averaging 6.4% between 2003 and 2012, noted Mr Wang. "Almost five years after the end of the three-decade civil conflict, Sri Lanka is now focusing on long-term strategic and structural development challenges as it strives to transition to an upper-income country," he said.
Key challenges ahead include creating inclusive growth, realigning public spending and policy with the needs of a middle-income country, and allocating state resources appropriately given high public debt levels.
Mr Wang firmly believes Sri Lanka will make progress on economic reform, although it may need more time to enhance the role of the private sector through incentives to increase productivity and exports. His in turn will improve the welfare of the people and economic growth.
"The new president may need some time to consolidate his position and to create a smoothly functioning system after many years of centralised power under the previous administration," added Mr Benard.
"Sri Lanka can improve its economy if it continues with its fiscal consolidation policy, thereby freeing up more funds for investment in human capital and infrastructure development."
LEGACY OF CONFLICT
Ahilan Kadirgamar, a researcher and political economist based in the northern city of Jaffna, said demilitarisation was still a crucial challenge given the huge numbers of young men and women recruited during the war.
"The opposition coalition focused on overthrowing the [Rajapaksa] regime but avoided the contentious issue of demilitarisation, the national question, and did not offer a viable plan for economic uplifting of the people," he said.
Mr Benard said that Sri Lanka had about 400,000 people in the military, a large number for a country of 20 million people facing no external threat. Thailand, by comparison, has about 320,000 military personnel in a population of 68 million. "A smaller army would free up fiscal resources to be spent on health, education and infrastructure developments."
He foresees that in a fast-growing economy, job creation and employment growth should be sufficiently robust to absorb new entrants should the government decide to shrink the army, provided demobilisation takes place gradually.
The new administration also intends to reorient and diversify its external relationships, particularly to steer the country away from China, on which previous governments had relied heavily for investment.
The new president is expected to be more open to funds from traditional bilateral and multilateral sources, though they would come with demands for greater transparency and accountability than money from China.
"The international community recognises that there has been a change of guard in the country, so the multilateral and bilateral donors and lenders are likely to be more favourably disposed toward Sri Lanka," said Mr Benard.
However, Mr Wang doesn't believe the new president will reject all Chinese investments and he doesn't foresee big changes in the overall investment climate.
"China is not disappointed with the new election results," he said. "I don't think President Sirisena will fundamentally change Mr Rajapaksa's policy although he may maintain a more balanced economic policy. The western media exaggerated the speeches of Mr Sirisena during his campaign."
Some analysts have suggested, though, that Sri Lanka now has a chance to better balance its external relationships with other countries in the region.
"The election of President Sirisena in a peaceful democratic process is a welcome opportunity to forge afresh a coherent, consistent and balanced foreign policy based on the permanent national interests of Sri Lanka and executed with professional competence," said Jayantha Dhanapala, a former Sri Lankan diplomat who has held key posts in Beijing, Washington and Geneva.
He said Sri Lanka could now return to its traditional non-aligned foreign policy maintaining friendly relations with its Asian neighbors, especially with the close historical and geopolitical relationship with India.
"Asia is the new centre of gravity in global political and economic relations and Sri Lanka can develop her economic potential with even-handed and mutually beneficial ties with India, China, Pakistan, Japan and the Asean countries using its strategic location," Mr Dhanapala wrote in a recent commentary.