Sri Lanka is ready to turn the page on the Rajapaksa family, which was once feted and admired by the Sinhala-Buddhist majority of the country.
The curtains have come down on Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa clan. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is unlikely to survive this latest round of mass protests demanding his resignation. He may go immediately or he may hang on for a few days but the die has been cast.
No one knows exactly where Gotabaya is at the moment, but he was not at his residence in Colombo’s Fort area when protesters broke down barriers and occupied it.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has set the precedent by announcing he would step down and pave the way for an all-party government to steer the island nation from a crisis much worse than during ethnic conflict. An all -party meeting convened by Wickremasinghe had called for Gotabaya to step down.
Gotabaya has little option but to resign considering the public anger against him. There is also speculation that Wickremasinghe will take-over as acting President if Rajapakse steps down.
The anti-government protests in Sri Lanka began in March in rural areas and accelerated by the end of the month. By April, the movement spread across the island with the Galle Face Green in Colombo as the focal point of the movement.
The protests were triggered by the financial crisis leading to the country’s foreign exchange reserves dwindling and the government in no position to pay dollars for imports of oil and other necessities. Ordinary citizens had to struggle and stand in long queues to get gas cylinders, milk powder, petrol, food items, and life-saving medicines. People’s anger against the government for mismanagement of the economy led to the call for Gotabaya’s resignation on social media.
The hash-tag “Go Gota Go” reverberated across the country. By May, most of the Rajapaksa clan resigned from their posts including Gotabaya’s powerful elder brother and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. But Gotabaya himself continued. He replaced his brother by bringing in Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. This helped to cool temperatures for some time. Wickremasinghe as the new prime minister took on the task of trying to manage the situation as best he could.
Talks for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan had also started. But the rot had set in deep and it will be impossible for Wickremasinghe or any other prime minister to restore a modicum of financial stability in the short time. Gotabaya had clung on to power. With no easing of supplies, the anger against him is also being transferred to Wickremasinghe. Many believe that Gotabaya and Wickremasinghe had a deal to ensure that the president remains in the saddle.
The irony is that the very same people who are in the streets calling for the Rajapaksas to go had voted overwhelmingly for Gotabaya in the presidential elections of 2019 and for his party —Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna— in the 2020 parliamentary polls.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family were feted and adored for their strong-arm tactics. Adulation for the Rajapaksas reached a peak since the 2009 military campaign which led to elimination of the entire top rung of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), including their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. While Mahinda was the president, Gotabaya was the defence secretary responsible for co-ordinating the war effort with the three services.
Yet it was no secret that Mahinda and his brothers ruled with an iron fist. No criticism was tolerated. Critics of the government, including journalists, were thrown into prison. There were also allegations of kidnapping and torture of those who dared to question the government. Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism was at its height during the Rajapaksa years with right-wing nationalists from the southern heartland making up the party’s support base.
While Tamil-speaking Hindus and Christians of the northern and eastern provinces were always a target of the ultra-nationalists, since the Easter bombings of 2019, Muslims were also the target. Human rights groups in Sri Lanka and abroad slammed the government, but no one paid attention to what the do-gooders had to say. Up until now.
But the nail in the coffin has been the economy. Sri Lanka has been living on big borrowings since the end of the separatist war in 2009. Huge Chinese infrastructure projects did not yield desired results and led the country further into debt. The government continued to live beyond its means and borrowed from the international markets to keep the nation's GDP growth at 8 per cent.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to the island’s lucrative tourism industry that brought in around $5 billion annually. Add to this the fact that thanks to Covid-induced lockdowns, remittances from Sri Lankans abroad also subsided. Gotabaya’s sudden decision to ban the import of chemical fertilisers was the last straw leading to a slump in the island’s tea and rubber exports.
This ill-conceived scheme of Gotabaya was the final nail in the coffin. Though this was withdrawn, the damage had already been done. Farmers were up in arms and the general disillusionment with the Gotabaya had begun in earnest.