Former President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that his successor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had agreed to remove his brother Mahinda from the prime minister seat after a meeting with opposition parties.
President Rajapaksa turning on his brother, himself the former president applauded for years for ending the 26-year-old Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, would constitute a massive shift in the country’s politics and a major victory for a months-old protest movement demanding the removal of all Rajapaksa family members from power.
Mahinda Rajapaksa used his popularity following the war to install as many as 40 Rajapaksas in government positions between 2010 and 2015. Two Rajapaksas recently resigned from cabinet positions: Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa and Irrigation Minister Chamal Rajapaksa. Their departure in early April was a response from the president to the protesters, removing all cabinet ministers from power except brother Mahinda, who holds the most powerful position in the cabinet.
Sri Lanka is facing the worst economic crisis in its history, causing severe shortages of food, medicine, gasoline, and other basic needs. Hospitals have run out of anesthetics and are increasingly not taking in patients; hours-long lines at gas stations have turned deadly, and President Rajapaksa announced this month that the country would default on all its foreign debt to use the money to buy food and fuel. Since Sri Lanka is a “democratic socialist” country, the people rely on the government to ensure basic goods supplies, rather than private businesses administering and importing supplies independently.
As a result, incessant protests demanding all Rajapaksas leave government have continued since March. One such protest, dubbed “Occupy Galle Face,” has resulted in the round-the-clock presence of protesters in the major government district of Colombo.
Protestors take part in a demonstration against the economic crisis in Colombo on April 9, 2022. (ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)
Sirisena, now the head of the opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), told reporters that President Rajapaksa had promised to remove Prime Minister Rajapaksa to opposition leaders on Friday, a move that would constitute a major rift in the Rajapaksa clan that could prompt a political crisis.
The president allegedly made the promise at a meeting with leaders of major opposition groups on Friday, which resulted in an official statement from the president’s office that said Rajapaksa promised to form a government with representatives of all parties included.
“A statement from the President’s Media Division … noted that attention was drawn towards the establishment of a National Council comprising the leaders of political parties represented in Parliament as the first step towards preparing a National Consensus Government to carry forward the government process,” Sri Lanka’s News First reported. “The President had noted that if all political parties reach common ground on the proposals put forward by the political party representatives at this meeting, he would agree to such a proposal.”
The president’s office roundly denied, however, that such a deal involved firing Mahinda Rajapaksa. Speaking anonymously to Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror, an unnamed “senior official” in President Rajapaksa’s government said on Friday that no such agreement had been made and that the president had only “requested proposals” for changing the government rather than agreed to anything, including suggestions for a new prime minister. He had not agreed to accept any such proposal, the source claimed.
Both Rajapaksas have refused widespread calls to resign. Mahinda had most recently done so in an interview with the Daily Mirror published on Wednesday in which he insisted that, despite the incessant protests attracting thousands of people calling for the removal from power of his entire family, he was still beloved in the country.
“This is not new to us. This has been going on for many years. But still we are here. We came in through a mandate because we are the people’s choice. We are with the people. We are from the people,” the prime minister said in response to the newspaper asking him about the fact that his last name was “severely tarnished.”
“We are here because the people want us. The day the people want us to go, we will go,” he promised.
Mahinda also denied any tensions with his brother, the president.
“Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the President. So I must always respect him as the President. He maybe my younger brother, but that is a different matter. That is a personal relationship. But he is the President and I respect him for that,” the prime minister said. “Like everyone else we also argue, even in the cabinet we argue. But our arguments stop there. He is the President and I am the Prime Minister and we are on the same page. If there are arguments between both of us we cannot continue to function as President and Prime Minister. It is not good for the country.”
The meeting with opposition leaders and promise to form a coalition government – but, seemingly, with the Rajapaksas still at the helm – did little to stop the protests. Hundreds continued to take the streets on Friday night local time with signs demanding the government and the ruling dynasty leave power.
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