The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which now sits in the opposition after it broke ranks with the ruling coalition, will vote in favour of the country’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, SLFP chairman and former President Maithripala Sirisena said.
Speaking at an event on Wednesday April 26, Sirisena said any conditions imposed on Sri Lanka by the IMF that were not agreeable to the country can be renegotiated.
“What is my position on the IMF? The five years of my government was with the IMF. There are certain conditions there that we cannot agree with, which we must renegotiate.
“This Friday, the SLFP will definitely vote in favour of the IMF facility,” he said.
The SLFP is a centre-left party which has now been reduced to a handful of legislators after leading many election-winning coalitions over the decades since its founding in the 1950s. The SLPP, controlled by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family, is an offshoot of the SLFP, a party that has – at least on paper – traditionally resisted what it and its allies have deemed the imperial machinations of the West-led global economic order.
Sri Lanka’s parliament is currently debating the IMF deal after the international lender approved a 2.9 billion US dollar extended fund facility to the crisis-hit island nation.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament Wednesday morning that new legislation will be enacted to facilitate the agreement and proposed reforms.
Sri Lanka is still recovering from the impact of the 2022 currency crisis, its worst in decades, and a number of opposition parties including the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) had repeatedly called for immediate negotiations with the IMF for a bailout, which the then Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)-led government resolutely ignored.
Staff-level agreement was finally reached for a four-year EFF in August 2022, with IMF board approval being granted in March 2023.
It is expected that the IMF programme, Sri Lanka’s 17th so far and likely the first to have at least some of its objectives fully realised, will be passed this Friday with the support of most parties represented in parliament save for a few smaller parties in the opposition.