Reeling economy powers protests against president
Sri Lankan protesters occupied the entrance to the president’s office for a second day on Sunday, demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign over the debt-ridden country’s worst economic crisis in memory.
Hundreds of demonstrators weathered heavy rain and called for the entire Parliament to disband to make way for a younger leadership.
“We will stay on, we will leave only when we have chased them out,” Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, a 32-year-old ex-soldier, said of Rajapaksa, his influential family and all the lawmakers.
Pushpakumara said he fought in the last stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war with ethnic Tamil rebels, which government soldiers won in 2009 after 2½ decades. Both Rajapaksa, who served as a powerful defense bureaucrat, and his older brother Mahinda, who was then president and is currently prime minister, were credited with the victory.
The Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with $25 billion in foreign debt — nearly $7 billion of which is due this year alone — and dwindling foreign reserves. Talks with the International Monetary Fund are expected later this month, and the government had turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.
For months, Sri Lankans have stood in long lines to buy essentials as the fuel shortage has caused rolling power outages lasting several hours a day.
Critics accuse the Rajapaksa brothers of borrowing heavily to finance projects that earn no money, such as a port facility built with Chinese loans.
The crisis and protests triggered the Cabinet’s resignation last Sunday. Four ministers were sworn in as caretakers but many of the key portfolios remain vacant.
Parliament has failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the crisis after nearly 40 governing coalition lawmakers said they would no longer vote according to coalition instructions, significantly weakening the government.