Nadhie Wandurgula,
a mother of two, clutches onto her handbag as she defies a nation-wide curfew
to come out and protest against the regime that has thrown many Sri Lankans into
poverty. And she blames Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for it. “He
needs to go, he’s robbed everything from us,” Wandurgula told the BBC. Wandurgula
is not a political activist. But she’s come to represent the groundswell of
political opinion on Sri Lanka’s regime.  

Sri Lanka, in the
midst of a deep economic crisis, is seeing its political establishment resign
in a bid to quell the anger of citizens. The Sri Lankan cabinet and the
governor of the island nation’s central bank have resigned following massive
protests over rising fuel and food prices. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has
invited all political parties to accept ministerial posts.

The invitation,
put out as a statement from the president’s office, says the purpose of the
invitation is “to come together to find solutions to the ongoing national
crisis.” “Considering this a national need, the time has come to work together
for the sake of all the citizens and future generations.”

This is happening
at a time protests have broken out across Sri Lanka. Chants of “Go Gota Go”
reverberate through the streets. Gota is a reference to President Gotabaya
Rajapaksa.  

While the
immediate reasons for the Sri Lankan crisis are to do with the nation’s dipping
foreign reserves as its tourism-dependent economy fails to recover from the
COVID-19 pandemic, a section Sri Lanka observers says the moment is a culmination
of continued mismanagement by the Rajapaksa regime.

The Rajapaksa
government has imposed a ban on imports, introduced steep tax cuts and has been
reluctant to accept help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For the
current mess, the Rajapaksa regime blames previous administrations.

The European Union
(EU) delegation in Colombo has urged the Sri Lankan authorities to “safeguard
democratic rights of all citizens, including the right to free assembly and
dissent, which has to be peaceful.”