evidence: Opinion polls indicate widespread dissatisfaction with the economy and suggest that, despite recent gains, Wickremesinghe remains the underdog, running behind his two main rivals, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, who heads the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and its National People’s Power (NPP) alliance.[4] With the political landscape more fluid and unpredictable than ever, what looks to be the country’s first-ever three-way race could well be very close, particularly given the uncertainties surrounding preference votes.[5] [...] The NPP’s Dissanayake, who has led in polls for much of 2023 and 2024, promises a more radical break from current policies and ways of doing politics. Organising intensively across the country since the end of the protest movement, Dissanayake and the NPP aim to channel popular anger at economic hardship and lack of action on corruption. They are positioning themselves as the inheritors of the aragalaya’s project of "system change" and the only real alternative to the establishment parties that have ruled Sri Lanka since independence, given that the JVP, which dominates the alliance, has only been in government once – and then only briefly.[5] Many appear willing to give the NPP a chance to solve the country’s problems.[6]