Sri Lanka's Economic Crisis

(Former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s speech)

On 01 March 2022, Sri Lankan citizens took to the streets in anti-government protests, amidst long hours of power outages, lack of fuel and cooking gas, essential goods and medicine caused by a number of economic lapses. The citizens, forced on to the roads in a showcase of massive dissent, blamed its populist leader and once military man, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government. They wanted them out; and the culmination of the protests was the ‘Gota Go Gama’ or ‘Gota Go Village’, that occupied the Galle Face Green’s agitation site and the land adjacent to the Presidential Secretariat. The protest went on for over 100 days, resulting in the resignation of Rajapaksa and his brother, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who was Prime Minister. Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and emailed his resignation letter to the Parliament.

In the aftermath, veteran politician Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected by Parliament as president of the country. Under his rule, the citizens’ protest was dispelled brutally and quickly; several protest leaders arrested as terrorists and seditionists, are currently under arrest.

While many of the problems that came about as a result of economic crisis still persist, an unstable stability is observed in the island nation. When the crisis will reawaken remains uncertain Speech.