After two decades of almost uninterrupted rule by the wealthy, corrupt Rajapaksa family firm, Sri Lanka is economically ruined, crippled by inflation, high energy prices and food shortages, and hobbled with massive debt on which it has defaulted. It owes creditors, including private bondholders and countries including China, Japan and India, more than $50 billion.
A quarter of its 22 million people, the UN warns, are at risk of food shortages, and the bankrupt country desperately needs some $6 billion before the end of the year just to buy basic foodstuffs, fuel and other essential goods.
After months of increasingly angry street demonstrations, non-violent protesters at the weekend stormed the luxurious homes of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, forcing both men, now in hiding, to announce that they will resign. It’s a far cry from the Jacobin-like menace of the Trump-inspired storming of the US Congress last year. Good-humoured crowds have turned the two buildings into visitor-attraction sites, many lounging in the comfortable furniture, enjoying a swim in the pool, or cooking meals in the presidential kitchen.
While the combined opposition parties are willing to take charge, power is likely initially to be passed to Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the 76-year-old speaker of parliament and a close ally of the Rajapaksa family, who will be given a couple of months to organise elections. It is a prospect that may not satisfy the radicalised Colombo streets for whom personnel changes at the top are unlikely to suffice.
Sri Lanka’s desperate plight is, however, only partly a function of Rajapaksa misrule. Its downward spiral has been fed by international crises: Covid, which deprived it of vital tourism revenues and the foreign currency it needs to import fuel and medicine; and the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and economic sanctions against Moscow. Vital supply chains of food have been cut. Sri Lanka’s people are caught in a whirlwind not of their making.