Trots kritiken: Sri Lankas president tar nytt lån

Anura Kumara Dissanayake (born 24 November 1968), commonly referred to by his initials AKD, is a Sri Lankan politician, who is the tenth and current President of Sri Lanka since 23 September 2024. Born in the village of Galewela in the Central Province of Sri Lanka, he moved with his family to the village of Thambuththegama in the North Central Province. Joining the JVP in 1987 with the onset of the 1987–1989 JVP insurrection, although he was admitted into the University of Peradeniya, he later dropped out of the university due to threats posed by the counterinsurgency operations undertaken by the government. Following the end of the insurrection, Dissanayake was able to resume his higher studies, becoming an undergraduate at the University of Kelaniya in 1992, where he participated in student union activity and graduated in 1995. With the ban on JVP being lifted in 1994 by the government of Sri Lanka, Dissanayake entered full-time politics as the national organiser of the Socialist Students Association and a member of the JVP Central Working Committee. He was then appointed to the JVP politburo in 1998 and entered parliament from the national list in 2000. He was elected to parliament in 2004 and served as Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation from 2004 to 2005. In 2014, he became the leader of the JVP and served as Chief Opposition Whip from 2015 to 2018. In 2019, he became the founding leader of the National People's Power (NPP). He was elected as President of Sri Lanka on 22 September 2024, becoming the first president to be elected from a third party.