COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will not resign, a minister said on Wednesday, despite demonstrations against his handling of the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Rajapaksa, who is ruling the country since 2019 with other family members in top positions, revoked a state of emergency late on Tuesday after five days as dozens of lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition. The debt-laden country has been struggling to pay for imports due to a shortage of foreign exchange.
Sri Lankans have been suffering from shortages of fuel, power, food, drugs and other items for weeks, and doctors say the entire health system could collapse. Street protests began a month ago and have intensified in recent days, with people openly defying the emergency and a weekend curfew to demand the ouster of Rajapaksa.
“May I remind you that 6.9 million people voted for the president,” Highways Minister Johnston Fernando said in parliament in response to criticism from the opposition and cries of “Go home Gota”. “As a government, we are clearly saying the president will not resign under any circumstances. We will face this.”
After Fernando’s speech, doctors held street protests over a shortage of medicine. Nearly 200 doctors, some in their blue scrubs, marched down a road by a national hospital in the commercial capital Colombo, chanting slogans against the government. Some held a banner saying: “Strengthen people’s right to live. Declare a health emergency.”
READ MORE: Sri Lanka’s economic crisis intensifies as 26 cabinet members resign
Medicines under a $1 billion credit line that India signed with Sri Lanka last month still have not arrived, according to a source aware of discussions between India and Sri Lanka.
Rajapaksa’s various moves including securing financial support from India and China have failed to end the shortages or street protests across the country. His finance minister resigned on Tuesday, a day after his appointment and ahead of crucial talks scheduled with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this month for a loan programme.
Rajapaksa dissolved his cabinet on Monday and sought to form a unity government, a proposal rejected by ruling and opposition parties. His brother Mahinda Rajapaksa is the prime minister.
There is such a paucity of funds that the country is temporarily closing some of its embassies. Sri Lanka’s sovereign dollar bonds dropped more than 3 cents on Wednesday to trade at deeply distressed levels of less than 40 cents in the dollar. The stock market fell around 2%.
