New Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe is sworn in on July 21, 2022 in parliament in Colombo. (Sri Lanka’s parliament/AFP/-)
Sri Lanka’s new President Ranil Wickremesinghe has formally invited lawmakers from across parties to join a unity government to revive the bankrupt economy by undertaking sweeping reforms, his office said on Sunday.
Wickremesinghe took office earlier this month after public anger over the island nation’s worst economic crisis forced his predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to resign and flee the country.
Speaking to influential monks at the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, one of Buddhism’s holiest shrines, on Saturday, the president said he “wishes to begin a new journey,” his office said in a statement on Sunday.
“I would like to undertake this journey and form a government which would bring together all the parties” of Parliament, a necessity to pass “painful reforms”, according to him.
The president wrote to all MPs in parliament on Saturday asking them to join a unity government.
He conceded to the monks that the economy would continue to fall this year with a contraction of 7.0%, but that he expected a recovery next year.
The new president assured that he was working to “restabilize the economy”. “It’s a difficult task. But if we don’t do it now, it will be more difficult. We have to ask ourselves if we should try to cure the patient by giving him medicine or if we should let him die without giving him medicine. medications”.
Inflation, which is currently at 60.8%, could rise further, the president warned.
The country is facing a historic crisis, suffering for months from shortages of food, fuel, raw materials and medicines, due to a lack of foreign currency needed to finance imports.
Sri Lanka is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a possible bailout, but officials believe the process could take months.
The country defaulted on its foreign debt of 51 billion dollars in April and, at the beginning of July, immense demonstrations of exasperated Sri Lankans led to the departure of President Rajapaksa, who took refuge in Singapore before resigning.
According to the World Food Programme, almost a quarter of the island’s 22 million people need food aid, and more than five out of six families do not have enough to eat or buy substandard food .
Last month, the United Nations appealed for international assistance to raise $47.2 million to provide lifesaving assistance at this stage.
© 2022 AFP
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