Aragalaya

September 30, 2024 12:44 PM

From Protests to Power: Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s Journey as Sri Lanka’s First Leftist President

It is more than two years since the Aragalaya Protests shook Sri Lanka to the core. Aragalaya means Struggle in the Sinhala language. The imagery of people storming the Presidential Palace and hoisting the Sri Lankan national flag, amid slogans of ‘Gota Go Home’, is fresh in the minds of many, in this island nation of 23 million people. Gota is the nickname of the then President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He fled the country in the wake of the Aragalaya Protests, and, resigned afterwards. Cut t...

Sri Lanka’s 2022 ‘Aragalaya’ revolt hangs heavy over presidential vote

Just over two years since Sri Lanka's 'Aragalaya' uprising that deposed the nation's president, the movement that sparked the mass struggle is rallying behind Anura Kumara Dissanayake to lead the fight against corruption and revive a broken economy. Marxist-leaning Dissanayake, popularly known as AKD, will be vying to become the South Asian country's new president as Sri Lankans prepare to vote on Saturday, hoping to draw on the widespread discontent that fuelled the protests in 2022 and ...