Samadhi Paramitha Brahmananayake is looking at the field where she spent months camped out with thousands of other demonstrators in Sri Lanka’s capital in 2022. She can’t quite believe that luscious green grass has replaced the hundreds of protester tents that filled the field opposite the presidential secretariat.
“I feel we’re now more energetic, more powerful,” says Ms Brahmananayake, a 33-year-old banker based in Colombo.
Two years ago, huge crowds forced the country’s deeply unpopular leader from office – now voters are just days away from choosing who they want for president. It’s the first election since the mass protests - called the “aragalaya”, Sinhalese for struggle – which were sparked by Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis. Inflation was at 70%. Basics like food, cooking gas and medicine were scarce.
