Ajantha Perera

Ajantha Wijesinghe Perera is a Sri Lankan academic, scientist, university lecturer, environmental activist and politician. She is known for her efforts to end the garbage crisis in Sri Lanka and is nicknamed as Garbage Queen. She founded the National Programme on Recycling of Solid Waste to solve the garbage crisis. She was also a candidate in the 2019 Sri Lankan presidential elections,

Career Perera has worked as an expert with several ministries in Sri Lanka and in Fiji. She is currently working to make a recycling management strategy for solid waste in the country.

She took an interest in politics in 2019 and contested in the 2019 Sri Lankan presidential elections as a candidate of the Socialist Party of Sri Lanka. She received only 27,572 votes, making her the seventh most-voted candidate. She was the only female candidate in the election and the first female presidential candidate in Sri Lanka since 1999.

In February 2020, she joined the United National Party following an invitation suggested by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, as Perera's grandfather had also represented the party before. She contested in the 2020 Sri Lankan parliamentary elections representing the UNP in the Colombo district, but failed to get elected.