COLOMBO — If anyone had said just a few months ago that thousands of ordinary Sri Lankans would soon take to the streets demanding the resignation of the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, even the most partisan of pro-opposition pundits would have rolled their eyes. If they had said that citizens with no party affiliation would soon be pitching tents right outside the president’s office so they could have a kip after a long day of shouting “go home, Gota”, the opposition leader Sajith Premadasa himself would have given them a wide berth.
Yet thousands of ordinary Sri Lankans are now doing exactly that as the country grapples with the worst economic crisis in its 74-year post-independence history. Though the government blames the Covid-19 pandemic and its toll on tourism and foreign remittances, opposition politicians and economists argue that politically motivated tax cuts, general mismanagement and a disastrously loose monetary policy are the real causes. There is growing consensus that excessive money printing by the central bank under the Rajapaksa administration has triggered an erosion of Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves, leading to a severe shortage of US dollars needed for fuel, medicine, food and other essential imports. Scheduled power outages that keep businesses and households in the dark for hours at a stretch, and long queues for petrol, diesel and cooking gas, have become commonplace. Yet these are “minor” inconveniences, analysts warn, compared with the grim fate that awaits Sri Lanka’s more disadvantaged communities as food inflation skyrockets and hospitals begin to run out of medicines.
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