Sri Lanka’s president offered to share power with the opposition on Monday as protests intensified across the country demanding his resignation over worsening food, fuel and medicine shortages.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s appeal to lawmakers came as heavily armed security forces tried to quell further demonstrations over what the government itself has acknowledged as the worst shortage of essentials since independence from Britain in 1948.
“The president invites all political parties in parliament to accept cabinet positions and join the effort to seek solutions to the national crisis,” Rajapaksa’s office said in a statement.
He stressed that solutions to the deepening crisis must be found “within a democratic framework”, as hundreds joined spontaneous demonstrations in cities, towns and villages.
The invitation came after 26 cabinet ministers, all members except Rajapaksa and his older brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, submitted letters of resignation at a late-night meeting on Sunday. The country’s central bank governor, Ajith Cabraal, joined the long list of resignations on Monday.
The move cleared the way for the country’s ruling political clan to seek to shore up its position.
Trading ground to a halt on the country’s stock exchange seconds after it opened as shares fell more than the five percent threshold needed to trigger an automatic stop.
The South Asian island nation is facing unprecedented food and fuel shortages, along with record inflation and crippling power outages, with no sign the economic woes are ending.
The government has announced that it will seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, but talks have yet to start.
Troops and police were put on high alert when the 36-hour curfew ended early Monday despite intelligence reports warning of more unrest, a senior security official told AFP.
‘Go home Gota’
“Go lunatic, Gota lunatic,” crowds chanted in Kiribathgoda on Monday, referring to the president, who imposed a state of emergency a day after a mob attempted to storm his residence.
Throughout Sunday night, hundreds of people staged noisy but peaceful demonstrations in villages across the island of 22 million, denouncing the Rajapaksa’s handling of the crisis.
“Gota go home, go home Gota,” protesters shouted in Rajagiriya, near the national parliament, while in Negombo, near the main international airport, people chanted: “Gota fail, fail, fail.”
Sunday’s all-day curfew prevented larger protests that had been organized through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, all of which were blocked by the government.
The platforms were unblocked and the partial internet censorship ended after 15 hours as the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission ruled the ban illegal.
The activists said they would hold larger demonstrations in several key cities on Monday to force the once-popular Rajapaksa and his family to resign.
A junior coalition partner announced he will leave the administration this week, a move that would weaken the Rajapaksa majority in the legislature.
Many economists say Sri Lanka’s crisis has been exacerbated by government mismanagement, years of racking up debt and ill-advised tax cuts.