sSão Paulo, SP (Fulhapress) – After months of protests that have led to economic chaos and an unprecedented political crisis, Sri Lanka on Wednesday held (20) indirect elections to appoint an interim president. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the former Prime Minister who previously served as interim president, will initially complete Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s original term, until November 2024.
In a secret ballot, Wickremesinghe defeated former Education Minister Dulas Alahabruma, with the support of the main opposition party, and leftist leader Anura Dissanayake.
Rajapaksa resigned after fleeing the country for the Maldives and then Singapore – with the right to be stopped by agents at Colombo airport before he could complete his escape. His survival, in the mail and in the country, is on the cusp of happening after protesters overran the presidential palace on the 9th of the month and occupied it for days.
The angry protests, a chaotic Saturday, were the culmination of months of dissatisfaction with the administration of Rajapaksa, a political dynasty that has been in power for decades in Sri Lanka.
The anger of the Sinhalese was also directed at the then Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, who also broke into his house, but also set it on fire. Neither she nor the fact that he spoke, on the ninth of the month, of handing the position over to a government of national unity, however, made him resign.
On the contrary, the politician was appointed interim president on the day Rajapaksa promised to resign but did not do so – the resignation itself would not come until the next day, via email. Wickremesinghe had returned to the premiership he had held five times in May, replacing Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya’s older brother who was forced to resign in another wave of similarly motivated protests.
The past few days, in the midst of declaring a state of emergency and temporarily revamped, have been quieter on the streets of Sri Lanka. It remains to be seen whether the election of the new president will maintain this climate in the country, so that he can carry out one of his two main tasks, the task of pacifying the country.
The other is the opening of the economy, wracked by the biggest crisis since the Pacific island of 22 million people gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1948. To the residential palace and the prime minister’s house, protesters let their photos be taken using the pool, picnics in the garden, Stretching out on the family and organizing tours of the property.
The spiral of chaos has been accelerated by what is seen as a series of mismanagement by the Rajapaksa family, exacerbated by the pandemic. Sri Lanka recently became the first Asian country since 1999 to default on its external debt of $51 billion.
Tax cuts enacted in 2019, along with drying up of tourism revenue due to restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus, have slashed state revenues and crippled the economy. This has also hampered the ability to launch public policies to reduce social unrest, which erupted when the Sri Lankan government, without credit, was forced to ration fuel.
In another questionable measure, Rajapaksa even banned the use of fertilizers of foreign origin, under the pretext of promoting organic farming. With no technology available, producers achieved one of the worst harvests last year, exacerbating the scenario of food shortages and inflation.
Wickremesinghe told CNN this week that the previous administration, to which he was an ally, had been “hiding facts” about the economic crisis, which has left the country, he said, bankrupt. The International Monetary Fund has even stipulated the full resumption of negotiations until the end of the political crisis.
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