Strike cripples Sri Lanka as president faces new pressure

COLOMBO: Millions of workers staged a crippling strike in Sri Lanka on Thursday, adding to pressure on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his ruling family to quit over the country’s worstever economic crisis.

The island nation of 22 million people has been hit by months of acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines, prompting widespread protests.

But Thursday’s nationwide strike was the first time the entire country had been brought to a standstill since the demonstrations began, with both state and private sector employees taking part.

Public transport was stopped, teachers quit school while shops and offices closed, police and regional officials said.

Rajapaksa invited leaders of his party to discuss the crisis on Friday, but former coalition partner the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) said they will not attend and instead told him to step down. PM Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya’s elder brother and a former two-term president, has said he is confident he will not be fired over the crisis.

In Colombo’s main commercial area of Pettah, wholesale trading shops were shut and workers joined a march chanting: “Go home Gota. Go home Gota,” referring to the president.

More than 100 trade unions, some even affiliated with the Rajapaksas’ ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, joined the general strike, demanding the president, prime minister and other senior officials resign.

Thousands of workers in the country’s free trade zones came out of their factories and staged protests demanding the powerful Rajapaksa family step down. Most banks were closed while a few provided reduced hours.