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Political patchwork may not work with visibly angry masses
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News of the PM’s resignation triggered some hope with crackers in the countryside welcoming the ridding of the senior politician in the government
Gotabaya Rajapakse is fighting to keep his job as president. Pockets of protests which have been growing in intensity and size are engulfing the country and protestors are howling with chants of Go Home Gota because they want President Gotabaya Rajapakse to quit. The President is an American citizen who had to relinquish his foreign nationality to run for the presidency in 2019 but it is something which most Sri Lankans have reservations about. Nevertheless, when Sri Lankans ask their President to go home, they not only want him to return to the USA but to also step down from his job. Late Friday night the President shored up his defences by declaring a state of emergency. The emergency will give the Sri Lankan military sweeping powers to detain people without warrant, seize property and to enter premises and carry out searches.
The country’s constitution requires the President to put the proclamation relating to the declaration of the state of emergency to the parliament for a vote in 14 days. The President’s political party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), has a majority in parliament together with its coalition partners including the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. But last week, the government’s coalition partners threatened to leave it which will reduce the majority the SLPP has in parliament. Coalition members hinted that a significant number of MP’s who are disillusioned with the government are also thinking of leaving it which will not only take away the government’s majority but also destabilise it. If so, there will be uncertainty about the government being able to pass any legislation including the recent one on the state of emergency.
Sri Lanka’s economy has hit rock bottom because of its mismanagement since the current president and government took office from 2019. Significant changes to the country’s tax system and shortsighted monetary policies to appease the government’s cronies deprived the state of billions of rupees and depleted foreign reserves. Couple this with a devalued rupee and it has made it impossible for the government to buy much needed food and medicines, fuel and domestic gas for its citizens. Inflation and shortages of essential commodities have led to people queuing up for them and that too without the certainty of being able to purchase what they want. At the end of February this year, the country’s foreign exchange reserves were USD 2. 0 bn which was a drop from January when it was USD 2. 1 bn and was sufficient to cover 1. 1 months of imports into the country.
Opposition political parties were quick to condemn the state of emergency. Tamil National Alliance MP MA Sumanthiran called on the President to immediately rescind the gazette notification. ‘You cannot stifle protests and opposition to the regime by declaring a state of emergency’ he tweeted and called on his parliamentary colleagues to not approve the ill- advised move. Colombo based diplomats were more subtle. ‘True there is an emergency in Sri Lanka’, said the German ambassador Holger Seubert in his tweet. ‘But let’s not confuse cause and effect. People demonstrating for their rights is no emergency but it’s the emergency that brings them to the streets’.
Giving its observations on the state of emergency the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) asked the president to revoke the proclamation declaring a state of emergency. ‘The declaration of a state of emergency is not the answer to the present situation in the country, including the spate of public protests which have occurred’, the statement said. Echoing the German ambassador it said that ‘these protests reflect the desperate situation of the people who are seeking to secure for themselves, and their families some of the most basic essentials in life. Over the past several months the country has been heading towards a grave economic crisis and early warnings given by professionals and experts in the field both local and international have gone unheeded’.
The president’s declaration of emergency on Friday came a day after thousands of protestors vented their frustration by marching to his home in suburban Mirihana asking for his resignation. The crowd was a motley group of mostly middle- class men and women, professionals, who are angry with the ongoing crisis leading to the non- availability of basic essentials. After they were stopped at the barricade at the entrance to the president’s private house by police in regular uniform and riot gear, the crowd stood facing the police and shouting ‘Gota is a rogue’ and ‘Gota go home’. The peaceful protest which had gone on for several hours turned ugly after the police doused protestors with water cannons and sprayed them with tear gas. Locals had kept basins of water for the protestors to wash their faces and neighbours said the tear gas had even permeated their homes by the following morning. An army bus which was driven near the scene of the protestors was set on fire. Eye- witnesses had allegedly seen the police provoking the crowd by throwing stones. Video footage of the police running after people and beating them up went viral and drew flak. The UN Resident Coordinator in Colombo Hanaa Singer-Hamdy tweeted that the UN is concerned over reports of violence in the country and called for restraint from all groups. She said the UN was monitoring developments post-protest.
About seven journalists who were covering the event were beaten by the army and police including the Special Task Force which is an elite paramilitary group, and had their camera equipment damaged. Subsequent news reports claimed that the damage to the equipment was deliberate to prevent news of the protest from spreading. British High Commissioner Sarah Hutton said she was perturbed about the attack on journalists.
The ensuing chaos led to the arrest of nearly 55 people including by standers. History was created the following day when more than 400 lawyers including the president of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka Saliya Peiris and others crowded into a packed Magistrates Court in Gangodawila to appear pro bono for the suspects.
The protest, which was marred by violence unlike the others which have been taking place all over the country, will also be a turning point for bolder action by protestors. President Rajapakse’s reputation for being a terminator has faded into the background as he stands face to face with the reality of the power of the people. On Saturday evening, the President approved an all island two day curfew to keep the protestors away from the streets. But on the following day, thousands of protestors were back on the streets all over the country, in defiance of the curfew. The police arrested more than 660 curfew violators.
For the government, a significant fallout from the protest will be the impact it will have on tourism which together with remittances from migrant workers bring in a big chunk of the country’s foreign earnings. According to the tourism ministry, more than 100, 000 tourists came to the country last month. It was a record number of tourist arrivals after two years. It was only days before this protest that several countries, including the UK and the USA, had issued travel advisories about travel to Sri Lanka.
With the people yo-yoing between anger, frustration and utter despair Sunday evening’s buzz that Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is planning to resign brought a glimmer of light in what is being described as Sri Lanka’s darkest hours. There were firecrackers to usher in the news. It was said that the prime minister had also decided that none of his family members who are now deeply unpopular with the people should be given portfolios for the duration of the rest of the government’s tenure. The move would have ensured that his son Namal Rajapakse who is the sports minister is also off the radar and out of the peoples’ minds until the next election and given him an edge for his come-back. Alongside the prime minister’s resignation the names of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Information and Mass Media Minister Dullas Alahapperuma and Education Minister Dinesh Gunewardene’s names were being touted for the post of prime minister. The options were far from ideal. While the Rajapaksas are the biggest part of the problem, the populace is shunning all 225 current members of parliament for fresh faces with fresh thinking. The prime minister’s resignation would also have automatically triggered an end to the life of the current cabinet. But hours later, a communique from the Prime Minister’s office denied any such move by the prime minister who had reportedly come under pressure from the cabinet not to resign.
With the government focusing exclusively on firefighting the protests to ensure its survival to the exclusion of everything else, matters of governance in health, education, agriculture, trade and industry and almost all other areas have come to a standstill.
