The youth are urging Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and his entire family to take part in the government. They demand that the country pay off the debt by giving the illegally acquired assets.
The youth are urging Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa and his entire family to take part in the government. At the same time, the youth are demanding that the country pay off the debts they are alleged to have illegally acquired.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that if the protesters are ready for talks, they will be invited to meet their representatives and hold talks.
Amid the unprecedented economic crisis in Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse on Wednesday offered to hold talks with protesters demanding the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his family from the Sri Lankan government.
Today is the fifth day of protest in Sri Lanka. The protest, which began on Saturday, is being waged 24 hours a day by young people demanding a complete overhaul of the corrupt political culture. They have been protesting that a corrupt political culture has prevailed since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948.
According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa is ready to meet with the protesting youth camping at the Kale Face Building near President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s Secretariat. The statement added that the Prime Minister had called on the protesters to meet with their representatives and hold talks if they were ready for talks.
The youth are urging Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa and his entire family to take part in the government. At the same time, the youth are demanding that the country pay off the debts they are alleged to have illegally acquired.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is the elder brother of Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Basil Rajapaksa, the younger brother, held the finance ministry in Sri Lanka until he was ousted by the president earlier this month amid the economic crisis. The elder brother Chamal is the Minister of Agriculture. Son-in-law Namal is the Minister of Sports.
A protest campaign is underway on social media urging young people to mobilize in the face of Kale. Besides, there have been ongoing protests across the country accusing the government of mishandling the foreign exchange crisis, causing severe shortages of essential commodities.
Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse has demanded the resignation of his ministers in response to popular discontent, but has failed to garner support for his call for the opposition to join the United Cabinet.
Meanwhile, Sajid Premadasa, the main opposition leader in the Sri Lankan parliament, announced that three resolutions would soon be tabled: a no-confidence motion against President Gotabhaya, an indictment against President Gotabhaya, and a resolution repealing the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which gives full power to the President by 2020.
Maithripala Sirisena, the former president of Sri Lanka and a member of the ruling coalition Sri Lanka People’s Alliance, told reporters on Tuesday night that he would no longer attend political talks with the government.
They put forward an 11-point plan, including the formation of an all-party interim government to overcome the current political stalemate.
Sri Lanka has been facing the worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948. People have been struggling for weeks over long power cuts, fuel, food and other daily necessities.
President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa justified his government’s actions by saying that he did not create the foreign exchange crisis and that the economic downturn was due to the corona, which reduced Sri Lanka’s tourism revenue and remittances.
Sri Lanka, embroiled in a major foreign exchange crisis, on Tuesday suspended foreign public borrowing until the end of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the preparation of a comprehensive debt restructuring plan that includes work.
The Ministry of Finance of Sri Lanka has stated that this policy will be applicable to all international bonds and all loans to all bilateral lenders, commercial banks and institutional lenders, except for transactions between the Central Bank and the Overseas Central Bank.
Speaking to the Sri Lankan people on television on Monday, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said he understood the plight of the people as pressure mounted to step down.
“We need to strengthen the economy. We will be responsible for resolving the economic crisis as we ended the 30-year war, ”he said of the 2009 military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The LTTE, which waged a separatist war for a separate Tamil homeland, was crushed by the Sri Lankan military in 2009 with the death of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that the Sri Lankan government is working 24 hours a day to overcome the economic crisis. He appealed to the protesters to end the struggle against the Sri Lankan government, saying that every minute spent on the streets we were losing dollar revenue coming to the country.
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