The economist Razeen Sally noted in his book Return To Sri Lanka that, in the 2015 election, the minorities – Tamils, Muslims and Christians – had voted against the Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism to which the Rajapaksas had pandered; Sinhala Buddhists voted against corruption and assorted abuses of power which had under President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The young and aspirational, fed up with quasi-feudal, dynastic politics, flocked to ‘Maithri’s’ banner. If Mahinda had won again, Sri Lanka would have slipped further into authoritarianism, Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism and ethnic strife, economic nationalism and dependence on China.
Razeen Sally underlined in his 2019 book that Maithri’s victory in 2015 was a golden and wholly unexpected opportunity for a fresh start – perhaps the best since the end of Mrs Bandaranaike’s rule in 1977. The new President Sirisena appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe as his new prime minister – Ranil’s third go at the job. However, the economist reminded readers of the words of his Colombo friend Tissa Jayatilaka: ‘Sri Lanka has a history of missing buses.’
And indeed, the people of Sri Lanka must have missed another bus. In 2019, neither Sirisena nor Wickremesinghe represented themselves, which allowed the return of the incompetent and corrupt Rajapaksas, who run Sri Lanka as a family business.
The result: the country’s first default since independence from Britain, which is not just due to the pandemic and Putin’s war against Ukraine, but also the fruit of bad policies and mismanagement: in 2019, VAT was cut from 15% to 8%; the import of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides was banned in a move towards organic farming as well as to protect currency reserves. Add to this the corruption of the Rajapaksas and their Sinhala Buddhist populism and chauvinism, and you end of with the current, ongoing unrest in Sri Lanka. Until yesterday, May 10, 2022 already eight people had been killed and over 220 had ended up in hospital.
The Rajapaksas have turned Sri Lanka into a family business. At one point, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa presided over a government which included two of his brothers and two nephews. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa also took on the ministry of defence, contravening a constitutional amendment barring the country’s head of state from holding a cabinet post. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (*1949) appointed his older brother and former president Mahinda (*1945) as Sri Lanka’s new prime minister. Mahinda Rajapaksa also took on the ministries of finance, urban development and Buddhist affairs. In addition, the president made his eldest brother, Chamal Rajapaksa (*1942), minister for internal trade, food, consumer welfare, home affairs, irrigation and disaster management. The list of Rajapaksas in the cabinet did not end there: Chamal’s son Sashindra became junior minister for agriculture, the prime minister’s son Namal was minister of youth and sports. After one year in office, Gotabaya Rajapaksa named Basil Rajapaksa as finance minister, taking over from his brother, PM Mahinda Rajapaksa; because of his corrupt nature, Basil was once nicknamed “Mr. Ten Percent”.
Amidst the ongoing economic and political crisis, all Rajapaksas with the execption of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa stepped down. Already yesterday, on May 10, 2022 it was reported that over 70 houses and offices belonging to Rajapaksa family members as well as ministers and MPs had been set on fire. The home of government minister Sananth Nishantha was also among the ones torched. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa not only stepped down, he had to be taken to savety by the military in a rescue operation when thousands of protesters stormed the PM’s official residence in Colombo. Protests have partly spiraled out out of control. Sri Lankan troops have been ordered to open fire on looters.
Protesters still demand the resignation of the president, the last remaining Rajapaksa in power. During the previous and the present reign of the family over Sri Lanka, Chinese and other infrastructure projects have been the source of vast corruption. Add to this that Lieutenant Colonel Gotabaya Rajapaksa, today’s President of Sri Lanka, was a key figure in the brutal crackdown on the Tamil Tigers and other rebels which, at the end of the civil war in 2009 alone, cost the lives of some 40,000 civilians, according to estimates by the United Nations.
Ordinary Sri Lankan citizens are the victims of high inflation, gas, food and other shortages, daily power cuts and more, while the Rajapaksas live in luxury. The clan has run the country like a family business. The pandemic, supply chain problems and Putin’s war against Ukraine together with poor policy choices such as tax cuts, the ban of chemical fertilizers and more have even alienated many Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists, the power base of the Rajapaksas. With their greed and incompetence, the family has managed the impossible: unite Sri Lankans, who are putting aside religious and racial differences to oust this powerful political clan.
The cost of living is exploding, not just in Sri Lanka. Poor as well as rich countries will feel the heat of their citizens, in democracies as well as in dictatorships.
Razeen Sally: Return to Sri Lanka. Travels in a Paradoxical Island. Juggernaut, October 2019, 386 pages. Order the book from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Amazon.de.
Photograph of now President, Lieutenant Colonel Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa in January 15, 2014. Photograph copyright/source: Flickr via Wikimedia by Jorgé Cardoso, Ministério da Defesa. Licence CC BY-2.0.
Article added on May 11, 2022 at 15:14 Swiss time.
