In stunning reversal, protests leave Sri Lanka’s ruling dynasty

By Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) – In 2020, Mahinda Rajapaksa won elections to become Sri Lanka’s prime minister, serving under his brother and president Gotabaya. In 2021, another sibling, Basil, was named finance minister, tightening the family’s hold on power.

Less than a year later, the country’s pre-eminent political dynasty is in trouble, as protesters take to the streets making demands that would have been unthinkable before the economic crisis struck: that the president steps down.

“Gota go home!” hundreds of people chanted along a leafy boulevard in Sri Lanka’s commercial capital Colombo this week as cars drove past, honking their horns in support.

From beachside towns in the south to the Tamil-speaking north, more than 100 demonstrations have broken out across the island nation since last week, according to the WatchDog research collective.

The unprecedented wave of spontaneous protests reflects people’s anger at spiralling inflation, fuel shortages, power cuts and what they see as rulers’ mismanagement of the crisis that has made it worse.

“Sri Lankans are very, very patient. You’ve really got to push them into a corner before they react,” said Chantal Cooke, a protester, holding a banner demanding that the Rajapaksas resign.

Within parliament, too, the family is losing ground.

Basil resigned on Sunday along with other members of the cabinet, and on Tuesday at least 41 lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition, leaving the government with a minority in the 225-member house and opening up the possibility of a no-confidence motion.

“The more it (the crisis) gets dragged on, the worse it will be for the Rajapaksa family,” said political analyst Kusal Perera, who has written a book on Mahinda, himself a former president.

The president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the crisis and on calls for him to resign.

But chief government whip and Highways Minister Johnston Fernando said Gotabaya, now 72, had been given a mandate to govern by 6.9 million voters, the number who supported him in presidential elections in 2019.

“As a government, we are clearly saying the president will not resign under any circumstances,” Fernando told parliament on Wednesday. “We will face this.”

Graphic: Protests spread across Sri Lanka over economic crisis – https://sphinx.thomsonreuters.com/graphics/?#/graphic/byprjbegrpe

NINE SIBLINGS

The fifth of nine siblings born to a political family in Sri Lanka’s Buddhist-dominated south, Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa joined the Sri Lankan military in 1971 and took part in operations against the Tamil insurgency during the country’s 26-year civil war.

In 2005, years after he retired and…