From the square to a majority

1. 1

   3.16% in 2019, 42.31% in the first count on September 21, 2024 (55.89% after second preferences): the NPP elected Anura Kumara Dissanayake president.

2. 2

   159 of 225 seats. On November 14, 2024, the NPP won 61.56% in the parliamentary election, two years after the Aragalaya forced Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign.

3. 3

   Disciplined activists in almost every Sinhala village, collectives of professionals and women, and a single message: end corruption, no alliances with the old parties.

4. 4

   Down to 43.26% in the May 2025 local elections.

5. 5

   The Aragalaya opened the window; an organization present in almost every village went through it.

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If you're new to this, start with the fundamentals, from the vote goal to what the research says. Read the fundamentals

The 2024 victory has two lineages: the Aragalaya, which refused to have leaders, and the NPP, which already existed and waited for its moment. The accounts below come from both. There are few detailed public accounts by NPP organisers of the campaign machine; where they are missing, the playbook says so.

• Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD)

  Leader of the JVP since 2014 and of the NPP since 2019; president since 23 Sep 2024

  Used Facebook from around 2014 to speak over the heads of media that ignored him, toured the diaspora in 2023–2024 and led the campaign without declaring any personal spending.

  Sources

• Harini Amarasuriya

  Anthropologist, university trade unionist, NPP deputy secretary; prime minister since 24 Sep 2024

  Joined through the National Intellectuals Organization in 2019 and, according to analysts, helped make the NPP trustworthy to professionals and the middle class; in 2024 she won 655,289 preference votes in Colombo, a district record.

  Sources

• Tilvin Silva

  General secretary of the JVP, the party at the core of the NPP

  Runs the party organisation in Pelawatte, whose disciplined network reaches almost every village; summed up the new government's priorities as development, ending corruption and democracy with accountability.

  Sources

• Ruwanthie de Chickera

  Playwright and theatre director; coordinator at GotaGoGama (2022)

  Described from the inside how the Galle Face protest village was born without formal organisation and stayed decentralised, with a library, a “people's parliament”, a medical post and a school.

  Sources

• Mangala Jayasekera

  Data technician in Brisbane; organiser in the Australian diaspora

  Helped organise community events across Australia, some with Dissanayake flying in from Sri Lanka to address the diaspora.

  Sources

• Sulochana Peiris

  Documentary maker, director of #GoHomeGota

  Filmed the Aragalaya as it happened, gathered footage from other participants and turned the film into a tool for teaching how a protest movement organises.

  Sources

• Ramindu Perera

  Sociologist at the Open University of Sri Lanka

  Documented the network of Kottasha Sabhas (constituency councils) and the women-only rallies that drew thousands, especially in rural areas.

  Sources

• Sanjana Hattotuwa

  Researcher on social media and disinformation (Groundviews)

  Analysed the Facebook debate about the 2024 candidates and the role of social media in mobilising the Aragalaya.

  Sources

Paraphrases of interviews and statements by Aragalaya participants, NPP leaders and supporters. Short quotes are in quotation marks.

• At first there was no organising at all: people came by themselves and put up tents at night. When Parliament invited 20 representatives to talks, they declined, because “nobody is leading this”.

  Ruwanthie de Chickera, coordinator at GotaGoGama, The Week, “People came in by themselves”, 19 Jul 2022

• There was no money to hire buses. The core group's job was to inform people of their rights and give the movement courage — the rest, she says, social media did by exposing the president's response.

  Ruwanthie de Chickera, The Week, 19 Jul 2022

• Summed up the absence of leaders in one line: “Lack of leadership was its biggest strength and weakness.”

  Aragalaya activist interviewed by Carnegie, David G. Timberman, Carnegie Endowment, 27 Aug 2025

• Argued that the protest's mandate lay in the street, not in Parliament — a position that left the Aragalaya with no weight in the succession to Rajapaksa.

  Wasantha Mudalige, leader of the Inter University Students' Federation (IUSF), Quoted in Carnegie Endowment, 27 Aug 2025

In 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected with 6.9 million votes. Three years later, with no fuel, no cooking gas and record inflation, hundreds of thousands drove him out. The NPP did not lead the revolt, but it was the organisation ready to channel the demand to “change the system”.

3.16% → 42.31%

for Dissanayake in the 2019 presidential election and in the first count of 21 Sep 2024official

61.56%

and 6.86 million votes for the NPP in the 14 Nov 2024 parliamentary election (3.84% in 2020)official

21

women elected to Parliament in 2024, the highest number in historyofficial

Rs 528 million

spent by the NPP on the presidential campaign, against Rs 1.12 billion by Premadasa (reports to the Election Commission)campaign figure

From the camp to government

1. 2014–2019Dissanayake becomes JVP leader on 2 February 2014 and starts using Facebook to get around the media. On 13 July 2019, the JVP and more than 20 groups found the NPP; in November, Dissanayake polls 3.16%.
2. Aug 2020Parliamentary election: the NPP gets 3.84% and 3 seats. Harini Amarasuriya enters Parliament on the national list.
3. 31 Mar–9 Apr 2022Protest near the president's home in Mirihana; on 3 April, the government blocks social media for about 15 hours. On 9 April, GotaGoGama, the protest village on Galle Face, is born; #GoHomeGota spreads across Facebook and Twitter.
4. 9 May 2022Government supporters attack the camps; reprisal violence against MPs' homes follows. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigns that evening.
5. 9–22 Jul 2022Protesters occupy the president's residence and secretariat; Gotabaya flees on 13 July and resigns. Parliament elects Ranil Wickremesinghe, and on 22 July troops clear the camp.
6. 2023–Mar 2024The NPP builds Kottasha Sabhas (constituency councils), launches a women's platform with rallies across the country and tours the diaspora: the US in 2023, Toronto and Vancouver in March 2024.
7. 26 Aug 2024Presidential manifesto launched. The NPP also publishes a separate manifesto for people with disabilities, the first of its kind in the country.
8. 21–24 Sep 2024Dissanayake gets 42.31% in the first count and 55.89% after second preferences are counted; he is sworn in on 23 September. On the 24th, he appoints Harini Amarasuriya prime minister and dissolves Parliament.
9. 14 Nov 2024In 54 days, the NPP goes from 42% to 61.56%: 159 of 225 seats, wins in 21 of 22 districts (including Jaffna, a first for a non-Tamil party) and 21 women elected.
10. 6 May 2025Local elections: the NPP wins most councils but falls to 43.26%, with turnout of 61.88%.

Three layers

The NPP worked in three overlapping layers.

• The core: the JVPA Marxist-Leninist cadre party with strict discipline and a hierarchical network that reaches almost every village, especially in Sinhala areas. It provides infrastructure, activists and centralised decision-making.
• The front: 21 groups and collectivesNational Intellectuals Organization, Doctors for Social Justice, University Teachers for Social Justice, Progressive Women's Collective, artists, unions, public servants and monks. They provide credibility with professionals and the middle class.
• The territory: Kottasha SabhasConstituency councils open to local activists who used to back the big parties, with spaces for women and people with disabilities. They extend reach beyond JVP activists.

Sri Lanka in 2022–2024 was emerging from the worst economic crisis in its independent history, with TV aligned with the big parties and an internet that reached little more than half the population. The NPP combined social media, rallies and an activist network village by village.

Platforms

Facebook

Main channel for all three leading campaigns; about 8.5 million users in the country (2023 estimate). Dissanayake had used it since around 2014 to reach people TV kept him from. In the 2024 campaign, he was the only one of the three frontrunners whose following grew substantially, and his posts were shared almost twice as often (EU observation mission).

YouTube

Together with Facebook, the most popular platform in the country. Long speeches and debates, where NPP leaders showed command of the issues and humour, circulated there, outside TV.

TikTok

The fastest-growing network and, according to EU observers, the main route to young people; with about 1 million new voters in 2024, according to an estimate cited by Hattotuwa, it was first-time voter territory.

WhatsApp

The most-used messaging app; parties ran many supporter groups to share content and coordinate.

Rallies and big screens

All three frontrunners held large rallies; the NPP streamed events on big screens (as on May Day in Colombo) and created district-level rallies for women only.

Diaspora meetings

Dissanayake toured US cities in 2023 and Toronto and Vancouver in March 2024, plus meetings organised by supporters in Australia. The goal was resources, influence over family and image, not votes (voting requires travelling home).

Local conditions

• Economic crisis: inflation of 74% in September 2022 and, in June that year, 6.3 million people (28% of the population) moderately or severely food insecure.
• Uneven connectivity: about 56.3% of the population with internet access in 2024 and digital literacy of 68%; much lower in rural and estate areas.
• Biased media: Hiru TV gave Premadasa half of its prime-time news in a positive tone; state broadcaster Rupavahini favoured the incumbent; the NPP was shut out of mainstream media.
• Restrictive law: the Online Safety Act (January 2024) criminalises “false statements” without defining them; in April 2022, the government blocked social media and messaging for about 15–16 hours.
• Campaign rules: door-to-door canvassing by more than five people legally restricted, posters and flags only at rallies and offices, a silence period before the vote and a spending cap of 109 rupees per voter.
• Electoral system: preferential vote for president (in 2024, for the first time, second preferences had to be counted) and a district-based proportional Parliament with preference votes for candidates.
• Weight of history: the JVP led armed insurrections in 1971 and the late 1980s that killed thousands; the party had to convince voters it had changed.
• Ethnic divide: Tamils are about 12% of the population; the North and East had never voted for a southern party, and the Aragalaya had little participation in the North.

The Aragalaya spread anger at corruption across the country. The NPP had an organisation ready, widened it beyond the party and kept one message for years, until the window opened.

Three fronts

Organisation before the moment

An activist network present in almost every village, a front of 21 groups and local councils built from 2019 to 2024. When the party system collapsed, there were people in every place to welcome newcomers.

One message, with proof of life

Corruption, “system change” and a new political culture, repeated since 2014. The proof was the biography itself: a candidate from a poor family in Anuradhapura, educated in public schools, with no political family, and the refusal of alliances with figures from the old parties.

Own channels where the media shut you out

Facebook and YouTube for speeches and debates, TikTok for young people, WhatsApp groups to share, rallies streamed on big screens, women-only rallies and the diaspora talking to family back home.

The campaign cycle

Reconstructed from what the NPP did between 2022 and 2024.

1. Be there without capturing During the Aragalaya, NPP members took part, but the party avoided an organised presence so it would not look as if it wanted to control the protest.
2. Name the anger Turn diffuse revolt into a simple, repeated frame: corruption, an elite that has captured politics since 1948, “clean up Parliament”.
3. Organise by sector Collectives of professionals, university teachers, doctors, artists, public servants and women: each talks to its peers and produces proposals.
4. Organise by territory One council per constituency, open to people coming from other parties, with forums, workshops and public meetings on local problems.
5. Show Large, well-organised rallies, long speeches with numbers and humour, clips for social media, and women-only events with women on stage.
6. Refuse the shortcut No alliance with parties or personalities of the old system, before or after the vote.
7. Turn the win into a majority After 42% in the presidential vote, dissolve Parliament at once and run a short campaign to give the president the means to govern: 54 days later, 61.56%.
8. Be accountable Declare spending, show results and accept that the clean-politics banner will be used against those who raised it.

And again.

What you need to build something similar: an organisation that lasts between elections, a front that reaches beyond it, local councils and your own channels. It works for a new electoral front, a small party or a citizens' coalition, as long as it respects the rules on this page.

Part of what worked in Sri Lanka works anywhere; part depended on a rare economic collapse and a 50-year-old cadre party. Separate the two before copying.

Choose your country

Pick the moves that fit your context and add them to your kit. Each one works on its own or combined with moves from other playbooks.

1. Local councils open to people from outside

   A council in each constituency takes in local activists (including people who used to back the big parties), holds forums on local problems and runs the campaign there, without trading posts with outside party bosses. In Sri Lanka, the Kottasha Sabhas gave the NPP reach beyond the JVP’s membership, and the front went from 3.84% in 2020 to 61.56% in November 2024.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   It works when the traditional parties lose trust and people in neighbourhoods are looking for somewhere to join.

   Don't use when

   It fails if opening up turns into handing out posts: taking in old-party bosses in exchange for positions destroys the proof that you are different.

   1. Week −78 Divide the map by constituency and name a lead in each one
   2. Week −78 Open a sign-up form for the local council, with consent to be contacted
   3. Week −70 Open the councils to activists from other parties, without trading posts
   4. Week −60 Hold one public forum per council on a local problem
   5. Week −52 Log activities, new participants and problems raised
   6. Week −8 During the campaign, each council runs the campaign on its own turf
   7. 12 week(s) after After victory, keep the councils active to listen and hold you to account

   Team

   • Constituency lead: convenes the council and follows up on every problem
   • Welcome: receives newcomers, including from other parties, and gives them a task
   • Log: records activities, new participants and problems raised

   What to measure: New participants per council who come from outside the party and return for a second activity, counted in the council log.

   Risks to watch: An open front with closed decisions breeds distrust: write down how councils take part in decisions and treat corruption in your own camp just as strictly.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

2. Professional collectives that talk to peers

   Groups of doctors, university teachers, intellectuals, civil servants, artists and women draft proposals for their sector and talk to their peers, lending credibility where the party alone can’t reach. In Sri Lanka, the front brought together 21 groups around the JVP; Harini Amarasuriya, who came in through the National Intellectuals Organization, won 655,289 preference votes in Colombo, a district record.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   It works when professionals and the middle class distrust party activists but trust colleagues who know the problem from the inside.

   Don't use when

   It fails if the collectives are just a front: without written rules on how they take part in decisions, the broad front becomes a list of names.

   1. Week −100 Invite collectives of professionals, teachers, doctors, artists and civil servants
   2. Week −96 Agree in writing how the collectives take part in decisions
   3. Week −80 Ask each collective for one concrete proposal for its sector
   4. Week −52 Keep the contact base: who is who in each collective and what they can do
   5. Week −4 Publish the sector manifestos before the campaign
   6. Week −3 Each sector speaks to its peers in their own language: doctors to doctors

   Team

   • Organising core: keeps the front alive between elections and guards the message
   • Collective coordinators: bring the sector together and deliver the proposal
   • Contact base: knows who is who and what each person can do

   What to measure: Professionals who joined a collective and delivered concrete work (a sector proposal, a meeting with colleagues), logged in the contact base.

   Risks to watch: A disciplined core can swallow the front and decide behind closed doors: publish the decision rules and give the collectives a real voice, not just a shop window.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

3. One message, proven by what you refuse

   The same message (corruption, system change, a new political culture) repeated for years on your own channels, proven by the speaker’s life story and by a public refusal of alliances with the old system. In Sri Lanka, Dissanayake used Facebook from around 2014 to get past the media that shut him out, and went from 3.16% in 2019 to 42.31% in the first round in 2024.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   It works when anger at corruption is diffuse and mainstream media shuts you out, but there is time to repeat the same idea until the window opens.

   Don't use when

   It fails if the message changes every campaign, or if the culprit becomes an ethnic group or religion: that is communal politics, a red line.

   1. Week −104 Write the message in one sentence: the problem, the culprit (a system) and the promise
   2. Week −104 List what you will never do: ally with those who caused the problem, communal attacks
   3. Week −100 Open your own channels on at least two platforms and post regularly
   4. Week −52 Publish full speeches and debates, with numbers and humour
   5. Week −8 During the campaign, cut daily clips for each platform
   6. Week −4 Set up rumour monitoring and answer with facts, with independent fact-checkers
   7. D-day week Respect the campaign blackout, online too

   Team

   • Spokespeople of different profiles (party leader, academic, professionals): repeat one message
   • Digital team: posts full speeches and cuts clips for each platform
   • Monitoring and fact-checking: tracks rumours and answers with facts

   What to measure: People who, after a speech or clip, signed up for a local council or collective, counted through the sign-up form with its source, not shares.

   Risks to watch: Whoever wins on the clean-hands flag is judged by it: the NPP fell to 43.26% six months later. Promise only what you will deliver, and never use anonymous pages or fake profiles.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

4. Women-only rallies and women at every event

   A women’s platform with its own coordination holds women-only rallies in every district and makes sure women speak at the general events. In Sri Lanka, 73% of Dissanayake’s campaign events had women speakers, according to the EU observers, who saw no woman speak at half of the rallies they observed; the women’s rallies drew thousands, mostly in rural areas, and in November 2024 a record 21 women were elected.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   It works where women were central to the mobilisation but almost never speak from political stages.

   Don't use when

   It fails as decoration: putting women on stage without their own coordination or places on the lists is just image.

   1. Week −52 Create a women’s platform with its own coordination
   2. Week −40 Build the calendar of women-only rallies by district
   3. Week −30 Train local women speakers for the events
   4. Week −8 Make sure women speak at every general campaign event
   5. Week −8 Stream the rallies and cut clips for social media
   6. 8 week(s) after Put women candidates on the lists for the next election

   Team

   • Women’s coordination: organises the rallies and chooses the speakers
   • Rallies and events: handles logistics, streaming and big screens
   • Training: prepares speakers who have never spoken in public

   What to measure: Women who spoke from a campaign stage for the first time, and women who joined a council or collective after a rally, counted by district.

   Risks to watch: Online harassment drives women out of politics: plan moderation, safety and support for speakers before putting them in the spotlight.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

5. A central fund and declared spending

   One campaign account, every expense and donation logged from day one, and the report filed on time and published even where the law doesn’t require it. In Sri Lanka, the NPP declared Rs 528 million in the presidential race, through its central fund and with no personal spending by the candidate, against Rs 1.12 billion for Premadasa, and answered suspicions of foreign money with documents.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   It works when your message is anti-corruption and opponents will accuse you of hidden or foreign funding.

   Don't use when

   It fails if money passes through personal accounts or the diaspora donates without you checking what the law allows.

   1. Week −26 Open a single campaign account in a central fund
   2. Week −26 Check with a lawyer what the law allows for diaspora and foreign donors
   3. Week −20 Log every expense and donation on the day it happens
   4. Week −8 Answer accusations of foreign funding with documents
   5. Week −1 Publish donations before the vote, even if the law doesn’t require it
   6. 3 week(s) after File the report with the electoral authority on time and publish it

   Team

   • Finance and compliance: keeps the central fund and the expense log
   • Lawyer: confirms spending limits and rules for donors abroad
   • Diaspora: raises money only within the law and documents every transfer

   What to measure: Donations and expenses logged with a receipt on the same day, as a share of the total, and the report filed by the legal deadline.

   Risks to watch: Where the electoral authority doesn’t audit, suspicion lingers: publish everything yourselves, and deal with any internal irregularity openly and fast.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

The NPP sequence, condensed into a checklist. There it took five years of a front and two months of decisive campaigning; adjust the timing to your calendar. Progress is saved in this browser.

The NPP's capital was its clean image. These rules protect it.

Money in the open

A central fund, a record of every expense and donation, and a report to the electoral authority on time (in Sri Lanka, 21 days after the result). Even where the law does not require donations to be published before the vote, publish them.

No illegal foreign money

Check what your country's law allows the diaspora and foreign donors to give, and document it. Accusations of foreign funding are common and need answering with paperwork.

Local campaign rules

Spending caps, door-to-door rules (in Sri Lanka, groups of more than five people were restricted), posters and silence periods vary. Check with a lawyer.

Real people only

No anonymous pages, fake profiles, bots, bought followers or attacks planted in entertainment and gossip groups.

No communal politics

Attack practices and systems, never ethnic groups or religions. In a country scarred by civil war, this is a red line.

Facts with sources

Accusations of corruption only with documents or public rulings. Innuendo undermines the clean-politics message.

Consent

Only message people who gave their contact details and agreed; data protection (LGPD, GDPR or local law) applies to campaigns and fronts.

Freedom of expression

Laws like the Online Safety Act can be used against critics. Anyone who promises to change the system should defend the right to criticise when in government too.

Non-violence

The violence of 9 May 2022 drove the middle class away from the Aragalaya and gave the government the narrative it wanted. No violence of any kind, including reprisals.

It cannot be copied quickly

The JVP network took decades to build and reaches almost every Sinhala village; outside its member groups, the NPP had little local organisation. Without a base like that, the rest of the method loses force.

Discipline has a democratic cost

The JVP runs on democratic centralism and its internal decisions are not transparent. In 2026, analysts were still debating whether the JVP had “swallowed” the NPP and pointing to Tilvin Silva's influence as almost equal to the president's.

The Aragalaya did not reach power

Few young Aragalaya activists reached government or the front ranks of the opposition; more than 70% of the NPP's 159 MPs are over 45.

The clean-politics banner turns on you

On 10 April 2026, the NPP voted down a no-confidence motion (153 to 49) calling for the resignation of Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, whom the anti-corruption commission (CIABOC) had decided to indict, a decision reaffirmed in late February. Opposition parties and anti-corruption activists also point to suspected favouritism in purchases of coal, vehicles and passports.

Changing the system is slower than promised

The government kept the IMF programme with marginal changes and did not advance the new constitution. In April 2026, the International Crisis Group urged it to withdraw or amend its draft anti-terrorism legislation to remove the threat it poses to democratic norms; in June, the justice minister promised to repeal the PTA within 2026 and replace it with a revised law.

Support falls fast

From 61.56% in November 2024 to 43.26% in the May 2025 local elections, with turnout of 61.88%. In July 2026, most people still approved of the president, but more than half said their household finances had worsened.

External shocks test the machine

Cyclone Ditwah, in late November 2025, killed more than 800 people and caused about US$4.1 billion in losses; the slow response was partly attributed to the government's inexperience.

Minorities and accountability

Tamil families of the disappeared and activists in the North kept facing harassment by the military and counter-terrorism police, and the government took no clear steps on wartime abuses. In the 2025 local elections, Tamil parties regained ground in the North.

The online campaign was harsh too

Dissanayake was the most targeted candidate online, but his own campaign also often used negative messaging against rivals.

Five questions to confirm the essentials. Each answer comes with an explanation.

Playbook built from accounts by Aragalaya participants and NPP supporters, statements by leaders, election observation reports (EU, PAFFREL), official data and analyses by Sri Lankan researchers published between July 2022 and October 2026. All pages were opened and read on 26 October 2026.

Updated 26 October 2026