Despite fresh elections in late 2024, Sri Lankan politics remain uncertain and risky, and democracy fragile. Overwhelming support for the reformist National Peoples Power (NPP) government in both presidential and parliamentary elections shows the extent to which people want transformation. Despite that, little has changed since the polls. While the political mood still largely seems optimistic, many hope for a clearer break from previous governments.
Overwhelming public anger at mismanagement of the economy, corruption, and public debt forced the strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee with protesters outraged at the country’s financial crisis thronging his abandoned palace and swimming in the presidential pool. In terms of the economy, the NPP government seems to have little choice. Immediately after winning power, the new president, the left-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake, ratified an International Monetary Fund-backed debt restructuring plan. Subsequently, the IMF also approved a fourth tranche of US$3 billion to facilitate recovery.
Yet, the legal instruments the previous regimes used extensively to suppress people’s power movements popularly known as ‘Aragalaya’ in 2022 and afterward remain in place. “Dissanayake promised more equitable economic policies and pledged to address some longstanding human rights concerns including by fighting corruption and abolishing the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act,” according to the 2025 Human Rights Watch report on Sri Lanka. “However, like previous presidents, he has not supported accountability for large-scale violations that occurred during Sri Lanka’s 1983-2009 civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).” Nor has he moved to abolish the draconian legal provisions used by previous governments to terrorize regime opponents…
