{"id":66857,"date":"2024-09-20T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/sep\/20\/sri-lanka-election-vote-hopes-revolution"},"modified":"2024-09-20T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T01:00:00","slug":"the-hardship-is-still-there-sri-lanka-prepares-to-vote-as-hopes-of-revolution-falter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=66857","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The hardship is still there\u2019: Sri Lanka prepares to vote as hopes of revolution falter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday\u2019s election will be the first since a people\u2019s movement toppled the president. But other problems have proved harder to shift<\/p>\n<p>Just over two years ago, a mood of both crisis and optimism gripped Sri Lanka. Across the Indian Ocean island, the population of 23 million people was enduring hunger, medical shortages and unemployment as part of the worst economic disaster in its history.<\/p>\n<p>Yet there was also a ripple of hope. A youth-led movement known as the <em>aragalaya<\/em> (struggle) had successfully toppled the authoritarian president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his powerful family dynasty, who were accused of bankrupting the country through corrupt deals and policies. Protesters overran Rajapaksa\u2019s presidential mansion, lying on his bed, swimming in his pool and working out in his gym.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/sep\/20\/sri-lanka-election-vote-hopes-revolution\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday\u2019s election will be the first since a people\u2019s movement toppled the president. But other problems have proved harder to shiftJust over two years ago, a mood of both crisis and optimism gripped Sri Lanka. Across the Indian Ocean island, the popu&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4417,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,674,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66858,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66857\/revisions\/66858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}