Anger Drives Sri Lanka’s First Vote After Meltdown

AFP/APP

Colombo: Retired Sri Lankan accountant Milton Perera had hoped to use his vote in upcoming presidential elections to vent his fury at political mismanagement and an economic crisis that slashed healthcare.

Instead, his widow Pushpalatha will cast her ballot in the September 21 polls in memory of her husband, mourning a man who died with chronic asthma unable to afford medicine.

Like many disillusioned by the chaos of direct protest, and ground down by tough day-to-day living, Pushpalatha says she will vote to show her anger at established politicians she blames for the mess.

Pushpalatha, 70, from the rundown and congested Slave Island district of the capital Colombo, said her 75-year-old husband died in December, just a few months after government welfare payments stopped.

“I had no money to buy his medicines,” Pushpalatha told AFP, while clutching a photo of her late husband, sitting in a damp home with crumbling walls.

It will be the first vote since an unprecedented economic crisis two years ago led to months-long food and fuel shortages, with protesters in July 2022 toppling strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.