Sri Lanka, the island nation of 22 million people has witnessed its foreign exchange reserves shrink due to economic mismanagement and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result it struggled to pay for imports of essential goods, including fuel, food and medicine. In May, it defaulted on its debts for the first time in its history after a 30-day grace period to come up with $78 million of unpaid debt interest payments expired.
With no fuel country’s transportation have been stopped completely for two weeks and Indian ocean island is virtually under lockdown. Now people have hit the streets in protest. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brother former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa and several other family members who were in the cabinet and parliament resigned. And Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s political destiny has turned a full circle from being a popular Sri Lankan president to a symbol of hatred within a short span of just 30 months.
Sri Lanka’s opposition political parties met to agree on a new government a day after the country’s President and Prime Minister offered to resign in the most dramatic day of months long political turmoil, with protesters storming both leaders’ homes and setting fire to one of the buildings in a rage over the economic crisis. Soldiers were deployed around the city and Chief of Defense Staff Shavendra Silva called for public support to maintain law and order.