ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankans go to the polls on Saturday to elect a president as they struggle to emerge from the country's worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.
Sri Lankans suffered through a tumultuous few years. They took to the streets for months in 2022, fed up with acute shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicine and prolonged power outages. These protests culminated in the storming of the presidential palace in July of that year, forcing former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee. country.