Yesterday, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa faced harsh criticism and ridicule in his first round of action as protests erupted across the country demanding the resignation of government officials close to him due to the deepening economic crisis.
Power outages and severe shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies for months have caused widespread suffering on this South Asian island, which is experiencing its worst economic downturn ever.
The Prime Minister, brother of President Gotabai Rajapaksa, yesterday visited a Buddhist temple with a 23-century-old tree in Anuradhapura.
There, dozens of men and women carried handwritten banners and chanted slogans demanding that the “thieves” be kept out of the city, 200 kilometers north of Colombo.
Heavily armed commandos were deployed as police moved to clear the way for the six-vehicle Rajapaksa convoy and officials said the prime minister would return to the capital by helicopter.
People closed many of the country’s main roads to protest shortages of cooking gas, gasoline and diesel, and the defense ministry said in a statement that the demonstrators acted “provocatively and threateningly” and disrupted essential services.
The 72-year-old president has not appeared in public since tens of thousands of people tried to storm his private home in Colombo on March 31, and since April 9, thousands have camped in front of his office in Colombo.
