evidence: This will be the first election after the people’s uprising of 2022, which forced the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign and flee the country. The serious contenders include Wickremesinghe’s one-time party colleague Sajith Premadasa, who founded the political alliance Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna chief Anura Kumara Dissanayake. [...] Wickremesinghe’s challenger Sajith Premadasa, who had contested the 2019 presidential election and lost to Gotabaya, has so far concentrated on attacking the government on specific issues. This month, he questioned the government’s motive in not adhering to a Supreme Court order directing the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to step down. He also attacked the government on its real intention behind handing over visa processing to VFS Global. He claimed that this was a "scam" and that the claim of "US $200 million investment [in Sri Lanka] by VFS" was a "complete lie". Sajith, son of former President R. Premadasa, asserted that "when a President defies the Supreme Court, he attacks the very fabric" of Sri Lanka’s democracy. Referring to Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena’s speech in parliament on July 26, where the government did not accept the Supreme Court’s ruling on suspending IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon, he said that President Wickremesinghe’s actions were "reckless" which "risks plunging us [Sri Lankans] into chaos and oppression".