Crisis in Sri Lanka: the opposition advances in the formation of the new government

Opposition political parties in Sri Lanka have scheduled a meeting for this Sunday with the aim of advance in the formation of a new governmentone day after the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksaand the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghewill agree to resign on the most chaotic day of recent months protests in the country.

For example, opposition lawmaker MA Sumathiran has ensured that everyone unofficial parties could easily muster the 113 members needed to form a majority in parliament, where they would ask the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to install the new government and then resign. He further stated this it should reach a consensus later in the day.

If both the president and the prime minister step down, which they officially announced on Wednesday, House Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena will take over the interim presidency, according to the constitution.

“Because he wants to hand over the leadership of the country peacefully, he asked me to inform the nation that his resignation will be delivered on Wednesday (July 13),” Abeywardena said in a televised message.

Due to the economic crisis, thousands of protesters poured into the capital Colombo on Saturday and made their way into the fortified residence of Rajapaksa. Videos and images showed a cheering crowd in the garden pool, in the beds at home and immortalizing the moment with their mobile phones.

Some made tea or used the gym, while others made statements from a conference room calling for the president and prime minister to leave.

It was unclear whether Rajapaksa was there at the time and government spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said he had no information on the president’s movements.

In the prime minister’s official home, meanwhile, they spent the night and said they would stay there until both he and the president officially resigned. It was also unclear whether the official was present when the raid occurred.

The pressure on the two was building in the midst of an economic meltdown that caused a severe shortage of essential products. People find it difficult to get food, fuel and other basic necessities.

After the chaos, this Sunday the calm seemed to arrive. The capital of Sri Lanka woke up to practically empty streets, closed shops and the memory of the tens of thousands of people who protested on Saturday.

Sri Lanka awaits international aid

The country is relying on aid from India and other countries as its authorities try to negotiate a bailout plan with the International Monetary Fund. Wickremesinghe recently said the talks were complex because Sri Lanka is now a bankrupt state.

The Asian nation, located south of India, announced in April that it would suspend payment of foreign loans due to a shortage of foreign exchange. Its total external debt amounts to $ 51,000 million, of which it will have to pay $ 28,000 million by the end of 2027.

Months of protests have nearly dismantled the Rajapaksa political dynasty, which has ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades, but the protesters they accuse him of mismanagement and corruption.

Who is Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the still president of Sri Lanka

Rajapaksa, who played an important role in the defeat of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas who ended the country’s long civil war, became president of Sri Lanka in November 2019.

He had previously served as Secretary of Defense under his brother Mahinda, who served as President of Sri Lanka for a decade, between 2005 and 2015.

Both brothers returned to power in 2019, when Gotabaya took over the presidency on November 19. A few days later, Mahinda was appointed prime minister, a position he held until May of this year, when he had to resign after violent protests that forced him to take refuge in a naval base.

With information from AP.

IS