They have been demonstrating on Galle Face Green, Colombo’s beach promenade, for more than a hundred days. The date was celebrated like a mountain festival, especially as protesters had managed to oust President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from office and out of the country last week. But what comes next? Ranil Wickremesinghe, the country’s six-time prime minister, is scheduled to be confirmed as Rajapaksa’s successor by parliament on Wednesday. But it is unlikely that Sri Lanka will settle down with this candidate.
“These people have been robbing our country since independence in 1948,” Lahiru Weerasekara, 32, told SZ on Galle Face Green when the protests were younger. Weerasekara is involved in Sri Lanka’s Green Party, which currently has no chance of getting a candidate through. Like many protesters, Weerasekara drew white stripes under his eyes every weekend as a symbol of enlightenment. “They all have to resign,” he chanted. Like most people in Sri Lanka, which has a population of 22 million, he is not for any of the three remaining candidates who are now going head-to-head.
On Tuesday, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa of Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy “for the sake of my country that I love and the people that I value,” he wrote on Twitter. He will support any candidate running against Ranil Wickremesinghe. A fresh start looks different.
The decision to withdraw from the race is also believed to be due to the fact that the proposed new cross-party unity government will only last a few months before the country can afford general elections. The next president will not be officially elected until 2024.
Ex-President Rajapaksa sent his resignation by email from Singapore
The SJB would like to make Dullas Alahapperuma president. Although the former journalist served as minister for mass media in the government of the Rajapaksa clan for two years, he is still considered less damaged than Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has been involved in the country’s politics for decades. At 63, he’s still ten years younger. A third presidential candidate is Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, leader of the left-leaning Janatha Vimukti Peramuna party, who is unlikely to stand a chance.
Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has again reached Singapore, from where he sent his announced resignation by email. The flight had become necessary because after an unsuccessful agricultural reform, years of mismanagement and accelerated by the pandemic, an economic downward spiral set in motion in Sri Lanka, which led to record inflation and food, fuel and medicine shortages Has. The protesters stormed his official residence on July 9th.
Ranil Wickremesinghe is currently negotiating a billion-dollar loan with India, a debt deferral by China – and with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is intended to help lead the country out of the crisis. But the IMF attaches importance to a perspective on how the country could be permanently rehabilitated. And such a perspective has so far been lacking. Especially when the candidates are so vehemently rejected by their own people.
The protesters see Wickremesinghe as an ally of the ex-president; he also stirred up outrage when, in his new role as acting president, he declared a state of emergency “in the interest of public safety” on Sunday evening. Student groups and protest organizers have already announced mass protests against his confirmation by Parliament. So Alahapperuma’s chances of beating Wickremesinghe are not bad. However, this would not necessarily improve the chances for the country.