{"id":130141,"date":"2022-11-23T16:02:29","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T23:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=130141"},"modified":"2022-11-23T16:02:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T23:02:29","slug":"economic-collapse-mahinda-rajapaksa-blames-foreign-forces-for-sri-lankas-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/11\/23\/economic-collapse-mahinda-rajapaksa-blames-foreign-forces-for-sri-lankas-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic collapse.\u00a0Mahinda Rajapaksa blames \u2018foreign forces\u2019 for Sri Lanka\u2019s crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0MEERA SRINIVASAN<\/span><\/a> Courtesy The Hindu<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

They are \u2018still active and driving protests\u2019, the former Prime Minister tells Parliament<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two-time President and former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday blamed foreign forces\u201d and the former government for Sri Lanka\u2019s economic collapse, while admitting to some wrong decisions\u201d taken by their ousted administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FILE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan ministers sacked by party ahead of crucial budget vote in parliament<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign powers eyeing Sri Lanka\u2019s national assets\u201d, and their local agents\u201d who were still active\u201d were fuelling anti-government protests, Mahinda told Parliament, during the second reading of the Budget presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the Finance Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was them who sponsored the protests in the country. Their action affects the tourism sector, which has now begun to recover,\u201d Mahinda said, calling Wickremesinghe\u2019s crucial, crisis-time Budget a giant leap\u201d to stabilise the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July this year, Wickremesinghe was elected President through a parliamentary vote, in which the Rajapaksas\u2019 party \u2014 holding majority in the House \u2014 backed him, after mass public protests dislodged Gotabaya, in the wake of an unprecedented economic crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angry citizens<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Citizens accused the Rajapaksa clan that held all important positions in office of presiding over the country\u2019s dreadful financial crash with poor policy choices, corruption, indiscriminate borrowing, and a refusal to course correct despite experts raising alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rajapaksa administration\u2019s explanation, citing the pandemic\u2019s aftermath and the former Maithripala Sirisena \u2014 Ranil Wickremesinghe government\u2019s policies, did not appease angry protesters, whose relentless agitations forced Gotabaya, then PMMahinda, then Finance Minister and another ruling sibling Basil Rajapaksa, and the entire Cabinet to resign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wickremesinghe, who has likened his task to taking over the Titanic after it hit the iceberg, has vowed to put the economy on a path of recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, with Colombo making little headway in restructuring the country\u2019s foreign debt, the wait for the $2.9 billion package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be longer than was expected by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budget 2023, passed on Tuesday with a majority of 37 votes in the 225-member House, aims to introduce policies in line with the IMF\u2019s expectations, but it has also drawn criticism from economists, political opposition, and government critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They point to inadequate social security for the poor and high defence spending, among other aspects, as major drawbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defence allocation<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Mahinda sought to defend the government\u2019s allocation for the defence sector \u2013 LKR 539 billion, an increase by over 10 per cent since last year \u2013 that some, mainly Tamil parliamentarians, slammed in the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some are questioning the defence allocation. I would like to tell them that a country\u2019s defence is more important than anything else. We will not allow the nation\u2019s security to be at stake,\u201d Mahinda added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Rajapaksa brothers resigned from office, their party still has a majority in Parliament. Gotabaya, who fled the country, is back in Colombo and has been accorded special security by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basil, the strategist of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or People\u2019s Front) who also left the country amid public rage, returned last weekend, with high-ranking police officials receiving him at the airport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0MEERA SRINIVASAN Courtesy The Hindu They are \u2018still active and driving protests\u2019, the former Prime Minister tells Parliament Two-time President and former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday blamed foreign forces\u201d and the former government for Sri Lanka\u2019s economic collapse, while admitting to some wrong decisions\u201d taken by their ousted administration. Sri Lankan ministers sacked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}