Sri Lanka’s new prime minister yesterday struggled to forge a unity government and forestall an imminent economic collapse, as opposition lawmakers refused to join his Cabinet and demanded fresh elections.
Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in late on Thursday to navigate his country through the worst downturn in its history as an independent nation, with months of shortages and blackouts inflaming public anger.
The 73-year-old insists that he has enough support to govern and approached several legislators to join him, but three opposition parties have already said his premiership lacks legitimacy.
Photo: AFP
Senior opposition lawmaker Harsha de Silva rejected an overture to take charge of the finance ministry and said he would instead push for the government’s resignation.
“People are not asking for political games and deals, they want a new system that will safeguard their future,” he said in a statement.
De Silva said that he was joining “the people’s struggle” to topple Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and would not support any political settlement that left the leader in place.
Photo: AFP
Huge public demonstrations have for weeks condemned Rajapaksa over his administration’s mismanagement of the worsening economic crisis.
Hundreds remain outside his seafront office in the capital, Colombo, at a protest camp that has for the past month campaigned for him to step down.
De Silva is a member of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, the largest single opposition grouping in parliament, which had appeared ready to split over the question of whether to support Wickremesinghe.
The head of the possible splinter faction, Harin Fernando, yesterday said he had returned to the fold.
“I will not support Wickremesinghe’s government,” Fernando said.
Two smaller parties have also signaled that they would not join any unity government.
The Tamil National Alliance said that Rajapaksa’s administration had “completely lost legitimacy” with the appointment of Wickremesinghe, a five-time former prime minister who most recently held office in 2019.
The leftist People’s Liberation Front (JVP) said that new national elections were the only way out of the current impasse.
“We can’t solve the economic crisis by having an illegitimate government,” JVP leader Anura Dissanayake told reporters in Colombo. “We demand fresh elections.”
The cash-strapped government is unlikely to be able to afford polls, or even print ballots, at a time when a national paper shortage forced schools to postpone exams.
Parliamentary elections are not due until August 2025.
Sri Lankans have experienced months of severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine — as well as long power cuts — after the country burnt through foreign currency reserves needed to pay for vital imports.
Wickremesinghe on Thursday warned that the dire situation could get worse in the coming months and called for international assistance.
“We want to return the nation to a position where our people will once again have three meals a day,” he said.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president’s brother, resigned as prime minister on Monday after his supporters attacked anti-government demonstrators who had been protesting peacefully.
‘EATING UP SPRING’: Temperatures are 10oC to 15oC above the seasonal average and a city northwest of Madrid experienced its first ‘tropical’ May night on Friday Parts of Spain are experiencing their hottest May since records began, as a mass of hot, dry air blows in from Africa, bringing with it dusty skies and temperatures of more than 40°C. Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, has warned of a weekend heat wave of an “extraordinary intensity,” with temperatures between 10°C and 15°C above the seasonal average and more akin to high summer than mid-May. “The early hours of 21 May have been extraordinarily hot for the time of year across a good part of the center and south of the peninsula,” Aemet said on Saturday. “In many places the
BUSINESS AS USUAL: Thousands of people were forcibly removed from their homes in the dead of night and all mentions of the incident were scrubbed from the Internet Thousands of COVID-19-negative Beijing residents were forcibly relocated to quarantine hotels overnight due to a handful of infections, as the Chinese capital begins to take more extreme control measures resembling virus-hit Shanghai. Beijing has been battling its worst outbreak since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 1,300 since late last month, leading city restaurants, schools and tourist attractions to be closed indefinitely. China’s strategy to achieve zero COVID-19 cases includes strict border closures, lengthy quarantines, mass testing and rapid, targeted lockdowns. More than 13,000 residents of the locked-down Nanxinyuan residential compound in southeast Beijing were
‘I’M STUNNED’: The disease is not known to be sexually transmitted, but a large outbreak might reveal previously unknown transmission routes, a virologist said Scientists who have monitored numerous outbreaks of monkeypox in Africa say they are baffled by the disease’s recent spread in Europe and North America. Cases of the smallpox-related disease have previously been seen only among people with links to central and West Africa. However, in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the US, Sweden, Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who had not previously traveled to Africa. There are about 80 confirmed cases worldwide and 50 more suspected ones, the WHO said. France, Germany, Belgium and Australia reported their first cases on Friday. “I’m stunned by this. Every day I
INTERVENTION: A source said that a border patrol agent had rushed into the school without waiting for backup and killed the teen gunman, who was behind a barricade An 18-year-old man on Tuesday opened fire at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 19 children as he went from classroom to classroom, officials said. The attacker was killed by law enforcement. The death toll also included two adults, authorities said. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that one of the two was a teacher. The assault at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde was the deadliest shooting at a US school since a man killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Outside the town civic center, where families were told to await news