They have been demonstrating at Galle Face Green, Colombo’s beach promenade, for more than a hundred days. The date is celebrated like a mountain festival, especially since protesters succeeded in ousting President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from office and abroad last week. but what happens next? Ranil Wickremesinghe, the country’s six-time prime minister, is due to be confirmed as Rajapaksa’s successor by parliament on Wednesday. But it looks like Sri Lanka will not be satisfied 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 small. Weerasekara is involved in the Sri Lankan Green Party, which currently has no chance of getting a candidate. Like many protesters, Weerasekara draws white lines under his eyes every weekend as a symbol of enlightenment. “They should all resign,” he shouted. Like most people in Sri Lanka, which has a population of 22 million, he is not for one of the three remaining candidates who will now face each other.
On Tuesday, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa of Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy “for the sake of my country which I love and the people I cherish,” he wrote on Twitter. He will support every candidate running against Ranil Wickremesinghe. New beginnings look different.
The decision to withdraw from the candidacy 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 is able to hold elections. The next president will not be officially elected until 2024.
Former President Rajapaksa emailed his resignation from Singapore
SJB wants to appoint Dullas Alahapperuma as president. Although the former journalist served as mass media minister in the Rajapaksa clan government for two years, he is still considered less corrupt than Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has been involved in the country’s politics for decades. At 63, he is still ten years younger. The third presidential candidate is Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, leader of the leftist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna party, who is unlikely to stand a chance.
Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has returned to Singapore, from where he emailed his resignation announcement. The escape became necessary because after failed agricultural reforms, mismanaged for years and accelerated by the pandemic, an economic downward spiral began to set in Sri Lanka, leading to record inflation and shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Protesters stormed his official residence on July 9.
Ranil Wickremesinghe is currently negotiating billion-dollar loans with India, a debt suspension by China – and with the “International Monetary Fund” (IMF), which is meant to help lead the country out of crisis. But the IMF stressed the importance of a perspective on how the country could be permanently rehabilitated. And such a perspective has so far been lacking. Especially when the candidates were rejected outright by their own people.
Protesters see Wickremesinghe as an ally of the former president; he also sparked outrage when, in his new role as acting president, he declared a state of emergency “in the interest of public safety” on Sunday night. Student groups and protest organizers have announced mass protests against his inauguration by Parliament. So Alahapperuma’s chances of beating Wickremesinghe are not bad. However, this does not necessarily increase opportunities for the country.
