Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa ready to meet with protesters as debt default looms, and opposition eyes no-confidence vote

Authorities are weathering intense public anger and spirited protests demanding the government’s resignation ahead of negotiations for an IMF bailout

Main opposition is collecting signatures to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president, while another petition for a no-confidence vote is under way

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Demonstrators sit in a protest area, dubbed the Gota-Go village, where people are gathering in opposition to Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa near the Presidential Secretariat, amid the country’s economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:35pm, 13 Apr 2022Updated: 5:44pm, 13 Apr 2022

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is ready to meet the protesters, who are holding rallies for the past five days and calling for the ouster of the government for its economic policies that have brought the county to the brink of a debt default.

“Understanding that this is a tough time for all of us, I invite them to meet & discuss any possible, plausible courses of action for the sake of #lka,” Rajapaksa said in a tweet.

Rajapaksa’s offer appears to be a more conciliatory after Sri Lanka warned of an unprecedented default and halted payments on foreign debt, a step taken to preserve its dwindling dollar stockpile for essential food and fuel imports.

“Every second you protest on the road we are losing dollars,” he said in the address to the nation. “Though all parties represented in parliament were urged to come forward to resolve the current crisis, no one has come forward. As a government, we will take responsibility.”

The island nation of 22 million people is in the throes of its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948, with a foreign currency shortage stalling imports of fuel and medicines and bringing hours of power cuts a day.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets, many staging a sit-in in the commercial capital, Colombo, to denounce the government led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Some of the protesters at the tent encampment, which has been growing over recent days with food stalls, medical facilities and phone charging stations, said this week they would only leave if the Rajapaksas stepped down.