At Galle Face Green, the embers of the protest that unseated the Rajapaksas are still visible.

Hundreds of pairs of shoes of protesters, who were allegedly assaulted by police, have been piled up together. Boards reading “Let’s build up a country without enforced disappearances” and “We are our own leaders” stand firmly on the green grass. Public walls are filled with slogans such as “Power To The People Beyond Parliament” and “Ranil Go Home.”

“After police picked up protesters randomly, people are cautious before assembling again for the protests,” 28-year-old Colombo-based civil engineer Nuzly Hameem, who participated in the protests, told OZY. “But that doesn’t mean that people are happy with the current regime. This silence is only a lull before the storm.”

In April, on the way to his office a little over a mile from Galle Face Green, Hameem came across hundreds of tuk-tuk drivers sleeping on the pavement while they queued up for days in front of fuel stations. At home, Hameem faced power cuts for 13 hours a day, and the prices for essential food items skyrocketed as well. “It became worse and worse. People realized that if we don’t protest now, then when,” said Hameem.

At Galle Face Green, ordinary citizens shouted “Go Gota Go” for months, leading up to Rajapaksa leaving the country. Wickremesinghe, the former prime minister, was then elected as president not by the people but by parliamentarians, even though he lost the last election and his party has no members of its own in parliament.  

Thisara Anuruddha Bandara, 28, who was arrested twice since April on charges of promoting “feelings of disaffection” toward the state and obstructing the entrance of the presidential secretariat, told OZY that the goal is to “unseat” all who protect the “corrupt system.” About one in every four Sri Lankans is between 15 and 29 years old, the demographic that formed the backbone of the anti-government protests.

But do they have a roadmap ahead?

President Wickremesinghe has held talks with a handful of protesters to discuss the future. Vimukthi Dushantha, whose Black Cap Movement withdrew from the protests soon after Wickremesinghe took power, is among those who have participated. Wickremasinghe has used a state of emergency and anti-terrorism laws to crack down on protesters. The Black Cap Movement wants these crackdowns ended in order to “create space for participation of citizens in the legislature in the next six months,” Dushantha said in an interview with OZY. “We want elections soon after these reforms.”

But Bandara doesn’t think Wickremesinghe has any intentions to bring any “reforms,” given his “military approach” towards protesters. Police, who enjoy sweeping powers to make arrests under emergency laws, have randomly picked up protesters and framed them on terrorism charges. Wickremesinghe’s brutal clampdown on dissent has been criticized by the European Union as well.

What protesters want is a Sri Lankan parliament that better reflects the country. The average age of lawmakers is 53, while the median age of the population is almost 20 years younger. Climate change activist Maleesha Gunawardana said to OZY that the nation needs more women in the parliament who will work for the future generation. Currently only 12 out of Sri Lanka’s 225 national lawmakers are women.

The protests were largely driven by ordinary citizens without political affiliation. But the National People’s Power (NPP), a coalition of over 27 opposition parties, worker unions and women's rights groups led by Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) and its breakaway faction, Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), organized several rallies since March. Rev. Nandana Manatunga, head of the Catholic nonprofit Human Rights Office, told OZY that, ideally, there should be a “strong coalition of the opposition” but that will be a “bit difficult” because of the government’s repressive measures. “The government may launch a crackdown on the opposition too, just the way it is punishing the activists,” Manatunga said.

Meanwhile, Hameem believes that an “early” election is a must to get rid of government repression. What’s needed, he said, is a more “educated” cohort of parliamentarians — at least 100 new faces — unlike the current set of legislators whose educational qualifications are shrouded in opacity. “Change may not come in the first five years, but it will eventually come in their second or third term,” said Hameem.

Dushantha, who said he will not contest the elections, wants “representation from every section” in the parliament, which currently only has people with “connections.”

Sociologist Kalinga Tudor Silva is hopeful that some of the protesters could turn out to be “efficient and accountable politicians” in the future. According to Silva, protesters are likely to form “multiple parties” because they have “different” political ideologies, but the existing political parties and politicians, including Wickremesinghe, eventually must “facilitate their passage to politics.”

“They must understand: If these protesters can get rid of the two most powerful people — Gotabaya and Mahinda — they can get rid of anyone,” Silva said.