- The ruling dynasty of Sri Lanka is facing a political crisis
- The alliance of Rajapaksas is now in the minority after lawmakers defected
- High inflation and power outages are also fueling anger on the streets
- President says not to blame for economic meltdown
COLOMBO, April 6 – In 2020, Mahinda Rajapaksa won the elections for Sri Lanka’s prime minister, serving under his brother and President Gotabaya. In 2021, another sibling, Basil, was appointed finance minister, cementing the family’s power.
Less than a year later, the country’s pre-eminent political dynasty is in trouble as protesters take to the streets and make demands that would have been unthinkable before the economic crisis: the resignation of the president.
“Got to go home!” Hundreds of people chanted on a leafy boulevard in Sri Lanka’s commercial capital Colombo this week as cars drove by and honked their horns in support.
From beach towns in the south to the Tamil-speaking north, more than 100 demonstrations have erupted across the island nation since last week, according to research collective WatchDog.
The unprecedented wave of spontaneous protests reflects people’s anger at rising inflation, fuel shortages, power outages and what they see as mismanagement of the crisis by those in power that has made it worse.
“Sri Lankans are very, very patient. You really have to corner them before they react,” said Chantal Cooke, a protester who held up a banner calling for the Rajapaksas to resign.
The family is also losing ground in Parliament.
Basil resigned along with other members of the cabinet on Sunday, and on Tuesday at least 41 lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition, leaving the government with a minority in the 225-member House and opening the possibility of a no-confidence motion.
“The longer it (the crisis) is dragged out, the worse it will be for the Rajapaksa family,” said political scientist Kusal Perera, who has written a book on Mahinda, himself a former president.
The Office of the President did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the crisis and calls for his resignation.
But Prime Minister and Roads Secretary Johnston Fernando said Gotabaya, now 72, won a government mandate from 6.9 million voters, the number that backed him in the 2019 presidential election.
“As a government, we say very clearly that under no circumstances will the president resign,” Fernando said in parliament on Wednesday. “We will face it.” Continue reading
Protests erupted in several regions of Sri Lanka, including the largest city of Colombo, over the country’s worst economic crisis in several decades.
Nine siblings
The fifth of nine siblings born into a political family in Sri Lanka’s Buddhist-dominated south, Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa joined the Sri Lankan military in 1971 and took part in operations against the Tamil insurgency during the country’s 26-year civil war.
In 2005, years after retiring and emigrating to the United States, Gotabaya returned to Sri Lanka and joined Mahinda’s government as Minister of Defense, where he oversaw the brutal end to a civil war that killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people .
The United Nations has indicted both sides for war crimes during the conflict, and Gotabaya has faced civil prosecution for alleged wartime atrocities. He has maintained his innocence and the case has been dropped on political immunity.
Riding a nationalist wave after deadly attacks by Islamist militants earlier in the year, Gotabaya came to power in 2019 with a landslide mandate.
Months later, the Rajapaksa-led Sri Lankan party Podujana Peramuna crushed opposition in the general election and helped his brother Mahinda become Prime Minister.
“We will make sure that (Sri Lanka) is not disappointed during our tenure,” Mahinda said after his victory in 2020. The island nation was already on the road to crisis at that point.
DEBT AND DEMONSTRATIONS
In the past, Sri Lanka has had weak finances, with expenditure exceeding revenue.
Some critics say the frailty was compounded when Gotabaya enacted deep tax cuts soon after taking office, only for the COVID-19 pandemic to further decimate the tourism-dependent economy.
Despite vociferous appeals from some pundits and opposition leaders, the government refused International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid for months even as the financial crisis deepened, leaving foreign exchange reserves dangerously low.
They totaled around $2.31 billion in February, while Sri Lanka faces around $4 billion in debt payments for the remainder of this year.
After a change of position, Sri Lanka is due to start talks with the IMF this month.
In a televised address in mid-March, Gotabaya said he understood the pain faced by ordinary Sri Lankans as imports stalled and inflation soared due to a lack of foreign exchange.
“I am aware of the shortage of essential goods and the price increase,” he said. “I also know problems like gas shortages, fuel shortages and power outages.”
But he distanced himself from the problems, saying: “This crisis was not caused by me.”
For some demonstrators and opposition politicians, that changes little.
“The red line has been crossed. Public confidence in this government has dropped to absolute zero,” said Udaya Gammanpila, a former cabinet minister in the Rajapaksa government.
Back on the streets of Colombo, in front of a theater bearing Mahinda Rajapaksa’s name, protester Cooke said the Rajapaksa had to leave.
“People aren’t going to settle for anything other than them all going,” she said. “They all want out.”
Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe; Edited by Mike Collett-White, Nick Macfie and Raju Gopalakrishnan