Explained: Political vacuum, missing Sri Lankan Govt and a restive street

Sri Lanka protests: Both, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, are missing and left with no political leverage or legitimacy to call for calm and peace even from the safety of their hiding places, Colombo is now effectively without a government.

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A Sri Lankan man shouts anti-government slogans during a protest outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, March 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Written by: Nirupama Subramanian

5 min readChennaiJul 12, 2022 06:25 PM IST First published on: Jul 10, 2022 at 03:20 AM IST

After a day that began with unbelievable scenes of protesters storming President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official home and his office and had still not ended when Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private home was set on fire late Saturday night, Sri Lanka was staring at a political vacuum that politicians are still uncertain about how to fill and the possibility of large scale violence on the street.

Both leaders said they will resign but neither had taken that step until late tonight. Both are missing and left with no political leverage or legitimacy to call for calm and peace even from the safety of their hiding places, Colombo is now effectively without a government.

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Late in the night, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene said in a televised address that President Rajapkasa had informed him that he would resign on July 13.

It is not clear if Rajapaksa’s choice of the date has anything to do with it being a full moon day, or poya, as it is called in Sinhalese. The July full moon is observed in the Theravada Buddhist calendar as the Esala Poya, which commemorates the Buddha’s first sermon and the founding of the Buddhist Sangha.

Irrespective of what dictated the choice of date, right now, even a few hours seems like a long time in Sri Lanka, not to speak of four days.

President Rajapaksa has not been seen in public since Tuesday, July 5, when he was booed out of Parliament. He was not present at the presidential home when protesters took over the Dutch-built residence once used by colonial governors, and bathed in its swimming pool, ate in the kitchen and took selfies on an antique four- poster bed.

Rumours swirled that Rajapkasa had fled the country Saturday in a Navy ship or by air, or was in hiding at a military camp. Through the day, there was no word either from his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was ousted from office on a day of violence exactly two months before, on May 9.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who attended an all-party meeting called by the Speaker, appears to have to been taken to safety after protesters started gathering at his official residence Temple Trees, and later set fire to his private home nearby.

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The police were overwhelmed early in the day by the sheer number of people who had streamed into the capital for a grand protest that had been days in the planning. By some estimates, it was a gathering of 8 to 10 lakh.

There were reports that in many places, the Sri Lankan military, nurtured like a favourite child by Gotabaya Rajapaksa after the victory over the LTTE in 2009, mostly stepped aside to let the protesters through. But there were also accounts of shots being fired by soldiers.

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From the ground, the word was that soldiers at the barricades were telling the protesters: “Just push your way through”. Some soldiers are reported even to have joined the protesters.

Wickremesinghe’s pitch at the meeting of all parliamentary parties was that he was “willing to resign” and make way for an all-party government to take over. And that he was “agreeable” to this recommendation by Opposition leaders. Gotabaya Rajapaksa said he would also resign in accordance with the wishes of the all-party conference.

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Sri Lanka’s economy now hangs by a thread, and is dependent entirely on the ability of its political class to come swiftly to an arrangement to run the government. International aid agencies have said that some 7 million Sri Lankans, or one third of its population, are facing hunger as food supplies have run out, or are out of reach of most. Sri Lanka has now fully run out of fuel and has pinned its hopes on two more shipments of fuel from India, of which the first is expected to reach only by the middle of next week.

The new government will have to take over negotiations with the IMF. Wickresinghe flagged that the head of the World Food Program was due to arrive in Sri Lanka next week.

Various proposals were put forward by the parties at the conference, including that the Speaker could head an interim all-party government and convene Parliament later to elect a President. Most agreed that the President and Prime Minister must quit before an interim or a caretaker government is formed.

A new government should be in office to continue engagement with the IMF and to conduct negotiations with head of World Food Program who is due to arrive in the island shortly. All that’s on schedule — but then everything else is up in the air.