Saman Gunadasa
Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse fled the country in the early hours of Wednesday morning on board a military aircraft that landed in the neighboring Maldives.
The secret operation followed a massive popular uprising on Saturday. Workers and young people stormed the presidential palace in Colombo and insisted on an immediate end to the widely-despised regime.
That upheaval, which involved hundreds of thousands of workers and young people, followed three months of continuous demonstrations. There is mass anger over a soaring cost of living, shortages of essentials, and a government austerity agenda aimed at making working people pay for the deepening economic crisis.
After Saturday’s uprising, Rajapakse and his Prime Minister (PM) Ranil Wickremesinghe announced that they would step down, a demand they had rejected for months.
Increasingly isolated, Rajapakse flew to Male, the capital of the Maldives, arriving at about 3 a.m. local time. His brother Basil Rajapakse, the former finance minister, has also fled. Both had reportedly attempted to leave the country yesterday, but had been blocked from departing by immigration officers.
The ignominious departure of the president points to the immense power of the movement that has emerged in the working class.
The Sri Lankan upheaval is part of an international upsurge of the class struggle.
The acute social, economic and political crisis in the island is the sharpest expression of a global crisis of capitalism intensified by the criminal “let it rip” response of governments around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbated by the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Everywhere, workers are entering into conflict with the capitalist program of austerity, mass COVID infection and a stepped-up offensive on wages and living conditions amid skyrocketing inflation.
The scenes of a president sneaking out of his country in the dead of the night have no doubt been watched with concern by governments all over the world. In every country, the traditional parties of capitalist rule are in a deepening crisis and explosive social opposition is building up.
There are also real dangers as the Sri Lankan ruling class desperately seeks to salvage its rule. Immediately prior to his departure, Rajapakse was involved in shadowy talks with the military.
On Monday, he reportedly came out of hiding for a closed-door meeting with the commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force. No details were released. However, hundreds of security personnel were deployed yesterday to the country’s main public TV stations—the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and Independent Television Network.
Rajapakse is due to quit his post today. Until he formally resigns, he retains the sweeping powers of the executive presidency, including to dismiss the government, declare a state of emergency and mobilise the military.
Whether Rajapakse stays in the Maldives and resigns or not, the threat remains of a military intervention against the mass movement of workers and rural poor, with the social and economic crisis deepening and the official parties offering nothing but further austerity.
The official annualized figure for food inflation hit 80 percent last month and prices for all essentials continue to skyrocket. The health system is breaking down amid acute shortages of medicines and medical supplies. Workers’ real wages have fallen by more than 50 percent this year. More than 70 percent of the population has been forced to skip meals due to the lack of food.
The outpouring of popular anger is triggering intense fears in ruling circles. The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce issued a statement on Sunday calling on the president to resign and party leaders to ensure a smooth transition of power in accordance with the Constitution. “It is hoped that the party leaders will put aside their ideological differences and get together as Sri Lankans at this historic moment to save the country from falling into anarchy,” it declared.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe issued a special statement on Monday, declaring: “I will safeguard the Constitution. No one can go beyond it and no one can force or dictate [to] parliament from outside.” His defence of the Constitution, which enshrines the autocratic powers of the executive presidency, is nothing but the defence of the capitalist state, private property and the exploitation of workers.
Wickremesinghe has declared that he will step down once an interim, all-party government, which is being hurriedly cobbled together behind closed doors, is installed. Parliamentary party leaders participated in a meeting convened by Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardhane on Monday, who announced parliament will vote to elect a new president on July 20.
The so-called ten-party alliance, including the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the breakaway “independent” group of Rajapakse’s own Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), met last Sunday. It decided to nominate SLPP parliamentarian Dullas Alahapperuma and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa as its candidates for president and prime minister. The SJB is the largest parliamentary opposition party.
On Monday, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake also assured the ruling class of his readiness to rule on its behalf. He told the media: “We are ready to take over the government for a certain period of time… We are ready to take up the responsibility.” He received encouragement from the US ambassador to Colombo, Julie Chung, who, after meeting with JVP leaders, declared the JVP to be “a significant party” with “a growing presence”, with which she has “a good understanding.”
The leaders of the Galle Face Green protests in central Colombo met with opposition parties, trade unions and so-called “mass organisations” yesterday to discuss their “Action Plan”. It is completely directed towards pressuring an interim government to implement measures to alleviate the social crisis. To that end, these self-appointed leaders call for the establishment of “people’s councils” to engage with the interim government.
The pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), which has been prominent in the protests, is playing a particularly insidious role in promoting the illusion that an interim government and new elections would alleviate the suffering of the masses. Its leader Kumar Gunaratnam told the media that an interim government “should implement nothing but the objectives of the struggle” and create the conditions to hold a “free and fair” election.
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