Ahead of the Sri Lankan presidential elections today, the Marxist candidate of the National People’s Power Party, Anura Kumara Dissanayake spoke at a rally in which he claimed that the “author of the [economic] crisis was Ranil Wickremesinghe” and felt pity for former president Ranil Wickremesinghe.
“They ended oil, gas, milk powder, fuel and electricity supply to this country. Ranil Wickremesinghe is one of the main parties responsible for this though he is hiding today. Who became the accused party in the end? Gotabaya. He was there for just two and a half years”.
Reflecting on the legacy of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Dissanayake claimed that “he made a few mistakes out of ignorance” but that “the major, serious economic assassins were Ranil and company”.
In April 2022,Sri Lanka announced that it was defaulting on its debt repayments, nearly a month before Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister. In July 2022, amidst the Aragalya protests, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced into exile leaving Wickremesinghe to take charge of the country. In November 2023, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court found that the former president, and his brothers Mahinda and Basil Rajapaksa, were guilty of economic mismanagement.
Dissanayake, who is a front runner for this election, has claimed that if elected he would attempt to renegotiate the terms of the IMF programme with Sri Lanka.
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