How Ranil Handled the Aragalaya

The launch ceremony for the book “The Power of the Aragalaya – From Ousting Gotabaya to the Imprisonment of Ranil”, authored by Prof. Sunanda Madduma Bandara, was held yesterday. The chief guest at the event was former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is currently on an official visit to India. Addressing the gathering, he reflected on the Aragalaya protest movement and the political developments that followed.

The former President described how his administration acted to safeguard democracy during a period of acute national crisis.

Drawing comparative examples, he noted that the Bangladeshi government had resorted to opening fire to suppress demonstrations there, while in Nepal, social media restrictions had worsened political tensions. Sri Lanka, he said, faced even more severe challenges, yet managed to navigate them within a democratic framework.

Recalling the allegations levelled by international media outlets—including the BBC and Al Jazeera—that his government had violently repressed the Aragalaya, Wickremesinghe remarked wryly that if the suppression had indeed been as successful as claimed, he would not have lost the subsequent presidential election. He added, with irony, that he doubted any other country in the world had carried out such an effective “crackdown” only to be defeated at the polls.

“We acted on every front because we had to protect democracy in this country,” he said. “Bangladesh faced its own crisis—people took to the streets, and in the end the government had to open fire. That was not the situation we faced. Look at Nepal: social media controls led to instability there. Our problems were far more serious than any of that. Yet we managed to contain them within democratic structures. That was what we were committed to. The international media—from the BBC to Al Jazeera—said we suppressed the Aragalaya. If the suppression was so ‘successful’, why did I lose the next presidential election? I don’t think there’s another country that has carried out such a ‘successful crackdown’ and then been defeated right after. We need to determine our own path forward.”