-By LeN Colombo Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -01.May.2025, 10.40 PM) Colombo’s iconic Galle Face Green transformed into a roaring sea of red this May Day, as an estimated crowd of 400,000 to 500,000 converged to mark International Workers’ Day under the banner of the National People's Power (NPP), Sri Lanka’s ruling party. Independent observers in the capital confirmed the gathering as the largest May Day rally ever recorded on the island.
In a striking declaration, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake used the occasion to deliver a rallying cry for the end of Sri Lanka’s “corrupt, elitist political order” and the ushering in of a “deep, progressive transformation” under what he called a truly people-centric government.
“This May Day, the working people of Sri Lanka are not merely commemorating labour rights – they are celebrating the burial of a corrupt, dynastic regime, and the dawn of a new political order forged by the people, for the people,” said Dissanayake in a fiery address. “This is the moment of reckoning. The politics of privilege has been defeated. The republic is reborn.”
The NPP’s rally, themed “The People's Power to Rebuild the Nation,” eclipsed all other political events held by rival parties across the island. Delegates from leftist parties in China, India, and Vietnam also graced the event, lending it a distinctly internationalist tone. Among the key speakers were Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, NPP General Secretary Nihal Abeysinghe, Minister K.D. Lalkantha, and JVP stalwart Tilvin Silva.
President Dissanayake, in his official May Day message, traced the origins of the workers' struggle to the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago, where blood was spilled in the battle for the eight-hour workday. The Second International, he noted, had since declared May 1st as International Workers’ Day – a legacy now reimagined in the context of Sri Lanka’s own political upheaval.
The President hailed the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections as a “generational turning point,” in which voters from all communities, transcending ethnic and religious divides, rejected a system where “a few families ruled the nation like a feudal fiefdom for over 76 years.”
He noted that under his leadership, the government has already stabilised an economy dragged to the brink of collapse by elite misrule. “From farmers to fisherfolk, youth to women, students to small entrepreneurs, the benefits of our policies are already visible. This year’s historic budget uplifted public sector wages more than ever before in our history,” Dissanayake claimed.
The President also promised justice for plantation workers, and a renewed focus on citizenship rights for long-marginalised communities.
Looking forward, Dissanayake called for a global rethinking of human rights in the age of digital and environmental transformations. “Our societies demand an updated Universal Declaration of Human Rights – one that embraces digital access, environmental justice, and new developmental imperatives while reaffirming peace,” he said, positioning Sri Lanka as a progressive voice in global discourse.
He urged Sri Lanka’s working population to stand united against the tremors of global geopolitical shifts, economic instability, and the residues of corruption that still linger within the old order.
“With fraternity and purpose, let us work together to build not only a prosperous nation, but a beautiful life for all,” the President concluded.
The full video of the NPP’s historic May Day rally is available below
---------------------------
by (2025-05-01 18:34:16)
)
Read 20556 Times
Leave a Reply
0 discussion on this news