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In Sri Lanka, Economic Necessity Collides With Political Reality – OpEd

16 0
19.12.2023

By EAF Editorial Board

When crowds of irate Sri Lankans stormed the presidential palace in July 2022 demanding the ouster of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, somebody like Ranil Wickremasinghe likely was not the replacement president they had in mind.

Wickremasinghe, appointed by parliament in controversial circumstances after Rajapaksa resigned and fled the country, combined a total lack of an electoral mandate with widely known ties to the discredited Rajapaksa political machine. As Neil De Votta wrote at that time, the voters ‘view [Wickremasinghe] as a Rajapaksa stooge’, under whose leadership former president Rajapaksa would return to Sri Lanka to ‘enjoy a high security retirement’.

That prediction was quickly vindicated, with Rajapaksa returning to Colombo in September 2022, his only legal censure being for now a largely symbolic court decision in November 2023 finding his government responsible for the economic crisis. The SLPP, a major political party with 99 out of 225 parliamentary seats, remains under the influence of the Rajapaksa clan, and its support was instrumental in Wickremasinghe’s elevation to the presidency.

The durability of Wickremasinghe’s elite coalition — as important a precondition as it has been for Sri Lanka’s economic stabilisation — is........

© Eurasia Review


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