evidence: Anura Kumara Dissanayake (born November 24, 1968, Thambuttegama, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka]) is the ninth executive president of Sri Lanka (2024– ) and leader of the leftist People’s Liberation Front (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna; JVP). Dissanayake’s election marks a major turning point in Sri Lankan politics. Unlike most previous presidents, he does not come from a political family. Additionally, the JVP has a controversial past because of its violent Marxist insurrections in the 1970s and ’80s, for which Dissanayake has apologized since becoming party leader in 2014. His victory in the presidential election reflects public frustration in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s 2022 economic collapse, as well as a desire to break away from the country’s traditional political elite. [...] Dissanayake entered the Sri Lankan parliament in 2000 as a representative of the JVP, and he has continued to work in the parliament ever since. From 2004 to 2005 he served as Sri Lanka’s minister of agriculture, livestock, lands, and irrigation. He became leader of the JVP in 2014, and shortly afterward he began to rehabilitate the party’s image, apologizing for the excesses of the JVP’s insurrections in the ’70s and ’80s and stating in an interview with the Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka) that the party had rejected violence: