Home Premium What Next For The Rajapaksas And Sri Lanka?

What Next For The Rajapaksas And Sri Lanka?

24
1

NEW DELHI: He was trying to be a round peg in a square hole but his regimented and military approach to governance could not save Sri Lanka. The very people who elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa President of this beautiful island nation with great enthusiasm and popular support in November 2019, eventually turned against him on Saturday, July 9. Months of discontent and frustration brought about by the collapse of the country’s economy erupted in an amorphous mob fury forcing Gotabaya to announce he would resign as President on July 14, two years and a half before his term was to end.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was appointed Prime Minister by Gotabaya less than two months ago, has already resigned. An interim President and an all-party government will likely be in place this week to try and administer the country that has defaulted on its sovereign debt and is desperately waiting for a bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Elections may have to be held to elect a new President and a new Parliament as soon as possible. It is, however, not clear how the interim government will find a way out of the economic mess. Sri Lanka has no foreign currency in its kitty; food items, fuel and medicines continue to be in short supply.

India, as its closest neighbour and friend, has tried to help Sri Lanka in the past six months. New Delhi has extended financial assistance to the tune of over 3.5 billion dollars in 2022 alone. As the mob fury subsides and an all-party government prepares to take charge, the question is what is the way forward for Sri Lanka? Will the interim government inspire enough confidence in the IMF for the financial institution to finalise a bailout package? Or will political instability and an uncertain political roadmap impose a caution on the IMF? These questions have no easy answers even as various factions and political parties struggle to put together a cohesive strategy.

The biggest uncertainty is over the future of the Rajapaksas and particularly, Gotabaya, a non-politician who rose to become President, 14 years after he returned from the U.S. to help his elder brother Mahinda in 2005. As Defence Secretary between 2005 and 2015, Gotabaya earned a reputation as a hard task master, an efficient administrator and a perfect foil for his politician brother.

Mahinda’s unexpected electoral defeat in January 2015 turned out to be a blessing for Gotabaya, who unlike his three brothers—Mahinda, Chamal and Basil Rajapaksa—was not seen as a career politician. So, as the government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (yes, this politician has been Prime Minister of Sri Lanka six times, including the most recent, two-month stint but never President), blundered through in the years between 2015 and 2019, bickering publicly, pulling in different directions and looking the other way when Sri Lanka’s already precarious financial position worsened because of their own follies, Gotabaya’s stock rose as straight talking technocrat, who wanted to make Sri Lanka the next Singapore.

The politicians of the Rajapaksa clan, reading the signals right, projected Gotabaya as the presidential candidate after forming a new political party (SLPP) to take on well-entrenched but largely discredited politicians from UNP and SLFP. Multiple bomb attacks on Easter Day in 2019 that killed over 250 people in capital Colombo further eroded the credibility of the Sirisena-Ranil government. The desire among the people to have a strong, efficient President translated into a landslide victory for Gotabaya in November 2019.

Winds of change seemed around the corner. In his first interview after being elected President (to this writer) Gotabaya outlined a detailed roadmap to make Sri Lanka great again, as it were. India, which had been wary of the Rajapaksas because of their closeness to China, also laid out a red carpet for the new President. A new era for Sri Lanka seemed not too far.

Then a combination of a series of ill thought out decisions, circumstances and the failure to keep out his politician brothers and their favoured but outdated bureaucrats took Gotabaya on the slippery slope of non-performance. In order to meet his election promise, the President reduced the value added tax by 50 per cent, choking one major source of revenue generation. In a country with an abysmally low tax base, this had a disastrous effect on government revenue. Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck worldwide. Strict lockdowns and tough travel restrictions helped Sri Lanka escape the wrath of the pandemic but it strangled the tourism industry, which accounts for a third of Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange earnings. To top it all, a hasty decision to ban use of all chemical fertilisers affected agriculture, sending food prices soaring. Remittances from Sri Lankans living abroad in 2020-21 was reduced to a trickle since many Sri Lankans working in the Gulf countries lost their jobs during the pandemic and returned home.

Meanwhile, interest and principal amounts on loans recklessly borrowed by successive governments from commercial markets since the 2000s became due for repayment. In 2022 alone, by one reckoning, Sri Lanka was due to repay some 7 billion dollars whereas its foreign exchange reserve was done to 2 billion dollars. The economic meltdown was inevitable. And it came in April 2022 when Sri Lanka defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time in history. Lack of dollars cut short import of food, medicines and petroleum products. India stepped in and tried to keep Sri Lanka afloat but the situation was beyond redemption.

Inflation and shortages began to bite the common citizen. The love and support that Gotabaya enjoyed in November 2019 and some months after that began to disappear. Now Gota (as Gotabaya is popularly known as in Sri Lanka) became the direct target of people’s ire. A cabinet reshuffle (dropping his unpopular politician brothers and nephew as ministers) didn’t assuage the anger. The decision to seek an IMF bailout seemed too little, too late (it is still under negotiation). India stepped in a big way but to no avail.

As food and fuel became scarcer and scarcer, popular anger rose proportionately culminating in Saturday’s siege of the Presidential residence and office and burning down of Ranil’s private house. An all-party meeting convened by the Speaker of the Parliament sought Gota and Ranil’s resignations. Gota has now promised to step aside on Wednesday; Ranil has already resigned. A national government is planned but no one knows what shape it will take and whether it will have the capability to pull Sri Lanka out of its current mess. So is the end of the Rajapaksas as the most influential political family in Sri Lanka over the past two decades? Given the history, it’s difficult to give a definite answer here. Mahinda, the undisputed political force, is unwell. Gota has suffered grievous damage to his efficient technocrat-politician reputation and the other two brothers, Chamal and Basil, are more backroom operators and organisers than popular leaders to make much difference to the future political fortunes of the Rajapaksas.

However, ousting the Rajapaksas will not make the economic disaster go away. More than 24 hours after the popular uprising in Colombo, the future looks more uncertain for the island nation.

[/vc_column][/vc_row][/tdc_zone]
Previous articleShinzō Abe: “Towering Global Statesman, Great Visionary” Leaves A World Better Able To Confront China
Next articleSL needs a stable govt for IMF bailout
Left to himself, Nitin A. Gokhale would rather watch films and sports matches but his day job as a media entrepreneur, communications specialist, analyst and author, leaves him little time to indulge in his primary interests.

Gokhale in fact started his career in journalism in 1983 as a sports reporter. Since then he has, in the past 41 years, traversed the entire spectrum across print, broadcast and digital space.

One of South Asia's leading strategic analysts, Gokhale has moved on from conventional media to become an independent media entrepreneur running three niche digital platforms—BharatShakti, StratNewsGlobal and Interstellar—besides undertaking consultancy and training workshops in communications for military institutions, corporates and individuals.
Now better known for his conflict coverage and strategic analyses, Gokhale has lived and reported from India’s North-east for 23 years between 1983 and 2006, been on the ground at Kargil in the summer of 1999 and also brought us live coverage from Sri Lanka’s Eelam War IV between 2006-2009. 
 
An alumni of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, Gokhale now writes, lectures and analyses security and strategic matters in Indo-Pacific and travels regularly to US, Europe, Australia, South and South-East Asia to take part in various seminars and conferences.

Gokhale is also a popular visiting faculty at India’s Defence Services Staff College, the three war colleges, India's National Defence College, College of Defence Management and the IB’s intelligence school.

1 COMMENT

  1. Thanks for another insight about Sri Lanka and thank u for the same. Looking forward to India’s fishermen’s pathetic state suffering done by Sri Lankan forces and related enlightenment. Looking forward to your programme this evening Till then best wishes again for good times
    R.s.vijayan.
    ****
    *”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here