06 ISSUE IV
MARCH 2025
MARCH 2025
What can we learn from Sri Lanka
Trump’s return to the White House mirrors Sri Lanka’s 2019 mistake of electing a former general from a political dynasty, only reversed by a popular uprising—but the stakes are higher globally.
By Senani Dehigolla
In 2019, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was elected president of Sri Lanka in a landslide. Gotabhaya was seen as “the right man for the job” due to his military background, his bureaucratic manner, and the fact that he had survived an assassination attempt by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. He seemed to embody the role of the nation’s savior, ticking all the boxes.
He was the second member of his family to fill the post. His older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had previously served as president from 2005 to 2015.
Mahinda’s presidency was characterized by financial mismanagement, alleged human rights violations, and, crucially, far-reaching nepotism throughout the government. Nevertheless, most Sri Lankans assumed a member from the same family tree would be radically different from their sibling.
But it soon became clear that the election of Gotabhaya had restored the Rajapaksa family to power and influence. Karl Marx’s statement that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce,” resonated deeply with many Sri Lankans. Gotabhaya resumed the public corruption and abuse of the state, nepotism in senior appointments, misuse of public funds for personal gain, and close relatives of the Rajapaksa clan were implicated in the revelations, via the Pandora Papers, of international money laundering and illegal offshore banking. Gotabhaya had also solidified his control over power, granting more powers in an executive presidency, censorship of journalists, and intimidating political opponents and critics.
But Sri Lankans had had enough. In 2022, three years into Gotabhaya’s presidency, Sri Lanka witnessed one of its biggest civil uprisings in its post-independence era. Hundreds of thousands came out on the street to protest state corruption, rising inflation, prolonged power cuts, and shortages of fuel, food, and medicine, among others. A key demand of the protest movement, also known as “Aragalaya,” was the resignation of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as head of state.
Large crowds from all over Sri Lanka gathered in the capital, Colombo, united in protest for a better future. They gathered daily in a public promenade named, Galle Face, that date to colonial times.
Primarily youthful, the protesters—who longed for change—formed a diverse coalition of people across all genders, races, and ethnicities. This unity, considered blasphemous throughout history, marked a powerful moment in the nation’s struggle for progress: On ethnicity, for example, the dominant nationalism in Sri Lanka is Sinhalese; the LTTE’s violence between 1976 and 2009 was rooted in the amplification of these differences. The protests revived a new political imagination with its physical manifestation in Galle Face.
The final protest on July 9th was one of exuberant strength and unity. The Inter-University Students’ Federation (IUSF) effectively undermined the counterinsurgency tactics of the security forces positioned at key entry points to Central Colombo. The students meticulously prepared on the evening of July 8th to remove the obstacles at these locations thanks to their considerable experience dealing with military authority over the years. As a result, security forces’ hypervigilance failed that night. State intelligence could not foresaw the element of surprise the dawn would bring and as the crowd grew, thousands of others joined, making it Sri Lanka's largest coordinated protest. Both amateur and experienced protestors occupied the front lines of the protests despite the heavy firing of tear gas and water cannons, a few sacrificing their lives in action.
The protest received wide international attention and exhumed an underexplored realm of people’s power, the metamorphosis of Sri Lanka’s civil society from subjects to citizens. Despite various criticisms directed at Aragalaya, its legacy will stand tall for echoing the demands of a citizenry that ended a long standing corrupt political dynasty.
Some of the criticisms against Aragalaya include the appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe as president between 2022 and 2024. A career politician, he had served as prime minister in previous administrations and had been implicated in torture and corruption.
Wickremesinghe’s government delayed elections and, like his predecessors, deployed repressive laws like the Prevention of Terrorism Act to harass and arrest protesters and silence criticism. Some may claim that Aragalaya was a Colombo-centric middle-class urban movement, however, in reality, “Gota Go Gama” consisted of complex layers of social representations with its origins in the nationwide teacher’s and farmer’s protest, and considerable backing from the students’ movement, a remarkable union of people that challenged the age-old tradition of elitist politics in Sri Lanka. The resistance also consisted of masses from remote villages who previously supported the Rajapaksa regime.
What can Araglaya teach the rest of us? For one, Trump’s return to the White House echoes the mistake that Sri Lankans experienced in 2019 when they elected Gotabhaya. The mistake had to be corrected by a civil uprising. Except that the stakes are higher in the US and globally.
One gets a striking sense of political déjà vu when watching what is unfolding in the world's most influential and powerful country. Trump 2.0 returned his brand of politics with renewed fervor, reigniting dormant prejudices and placing democracy on the gambit — all in pursuit of a so-called “greater America.”
The mass deportations, federal bans, and a globally synchronized democratic collapse are a stark reminder that the US’s pursuit of greatness has often followed an authoritarian path.
In an era marked by pronounced American exceptionalism and an assertive foreign policy, the impact of Trumpism spans from the potential normalization of repressive measures both domestically and internationally to the encouragement of right-wing populist leaders around the globe.
Trump’s reelection shows that the incumbent reflects people’s political frustration with the lack of progressive alternatives. The legacy of Argalaya taught us that political awareness and rejecting divisive politics could eventually transform into a commitment to change the future by preventing the return of the past.
Sri Lanka’s presidential election in 2024 presented an unprecedented electoral victory to Anura Kumara Dissanayake— a left-leaning career politician. Even though he did not overtly run his campaign on a left platform opposing neoliberal policies, most Sri Lankans voted for drastic political change, particularly to end corruption. They also voted to end the cycle of “renewed” IMF restructuring packages and endless debt servicing to recolonize our economies and ruthlessly tighten the noose on our debt problem.
Dissanayake previously contested previous elections under the banner of the leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The JVP never got more than three percent of the national vote. For the 2024 elections, Dissanayake ran as the candidate of National People’s Power (NPP). The election campaign effectively tapped into the public’s anti-establishment sentiment. Also notable was NPP and Dissanayake’s success among northern and upcountry Tamil voters.
Some are impatient with the new government, especially its handling of the IMF. The new government has pursued a soft approach toward the Fund, pledging to enforce austerity measures, including privatization and reductions in public spending. The reluctance to renegotiate an IMF loan deal could potentially exacerbate the monumental task of debt servicing in the future, placing an undue burden on the country’s citizens.
It remains to be seen whether the current head of state can lead the island nation out of its economic turmoil. Achieving this, however, requires a collective and global political agenda. The major lesson from Sri Lanka may be that US power and the neoliberal agenda that goes along with it can only be challenged collectively and on a global scale.
Senani Dehigolla iholds an MA in International Affairs from The New School. She is an associate at Regions refocus.