Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Wednesday said he is ready to talk with those who have been protesting against the government at the Galle Face seafront near the presidential secretariat for the past five days. The protesters holding placards have been calling the Rajapaksas “corrupt” while asking them to step down from the government.
“I am willing and prepared to meet the citizens currently engaged in protest at Galle Face to hear their thoughts and complaints. Understanding that this is a tough time for all of us, I invite them to meet and discuss possible and plausible courses of action for the sake of Sri Lanka,” Mahinda tweeted. A statement from the Prime Minister’s office also said the same.
Earlier Mahinda, during a televised address to the Sri Lankans, asked them to end the protests and said “as the protest go on every minute we lose dollars.” While Mahinda is one of the mass leaders in Sri Lanka among the Sinhala majority, his statement requesting the people to “calm down” did not augur well as the anger has multiplied over the past several weeks due to long hours of power cuts and long wait at fuel and gas stations. In fact, political observers in Sri Lanka termed it the “worst speech” as it did not empathise with the sentiments of the people.
Mahinda, a man who was once celebrated as the mass leader of the country, seems to have lost his direct touch with the masses for he demanded the economic record of his family regime and also did not hint on political stability, at a time when the protesters have been demanding his family to step down from power.
The Sri Lankans have been witnessing an acute economic crisis leading to the government declaring itself “bankrupt”. In an extreme step, the finance ministry on Tuesday announced defaulting on all its external debts and asked the creditors to either claim in Sri Lankan rupees or capitalise on their debts. The South Asian country owes $52 billion worth external debt and has nearly $6 billion of debt servicing this year and $25 billion till 2026. Meanwhile, Fitch ratings has placed 13 Sri Lankan national banks on Rating Watch Negative (RWN), depending on its funding and liquidity positions. On Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s rupee value fell further against the dollar to 320 LKR per USD.
