Category: News

China President Xi Jinping has extended his congratulations to Ranil Wickremesinghe on his election as President.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement said President Xi Jinping pointed out that China and Sri Lanka are traditional friendly neighbours and believes that under the leadership of President Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka will surely overcome temporary difficulties and advance the process of economic and social recovery.

The statement noted that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 65 years ago, the two countries have been advancing the development of bilateral relations on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, setting a good example of friendly coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation between countries of different sizes.

President Xi said he attaches great importance to the development of China-Sri Lanka relations and is willing to provide support and assistance within China’s capacity to President Wickremesinghe and the Sri Lankan people in their efforts.

Source: News Radio

Ranil Wickremesinghe must fix a mess which many think is partly his fault

Ranil wickremesinghe is a familiar sight to anyone who has taken even a passing interest in Sri Lankan politics in recent decades. First elected to Parliament in 1977, he has held a variety of cabinet jobs over the years, including, on six occasions, that of prime minister. His most recent stint was in the service of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose tenure as president came to an ignominious end on July 14th when he tendered his resignation by email from Singapore, having fled the country in the dead of night the day before.

Fearing prosecution for alleged corruption and crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war, the disgraced ex-president is expected to lay low abroad for the foreseeable future. But Mr Wickremesinghe (pictured in effigy) will remain a familiar face around Colombo, the capital.

After taking over from his boss in an acting capacity the week before, he was officially elected president by a clear majority of 134 of the 225 members of Parliament on July 20th. He is expected to serve out the remainder of Mr Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024.

His election raises hopes that Sri Lanka, which has been in economic and political turmoil for months, will at last regain the political stability required to solve its economic problems. But Mr Wickremesinghe’s chances of success are complicated by his willingness to work with the Rajapaksas. The protesters who chased Mr Rajapaksa from office had also demanded Mr Wickremesinghe’s resignation as prime minister. Their idea of his stepping down hardly involved a promotion to the highest office in the land. That bodes ill for his chances of uniting Sri Lankans behind him in a time of crisis.

There is some room for optimism. Mr Rajapaksa, for all his reluctance to relinquish the powers he enjoyed, eventually departed in the face of public pressure rather than call in the army to quash protests and rule by decree. Mr Wickremesinghe imposed a curfew, declared a state of emergency and described the largely peaceful protesters as “fascists”, suggesting a degree of personal anger which he will have to keep in check over the coming months. But he also submitted to the constitutional process rather than seek to prolong his interim stint in power. Security forces acted with restraint compared with past crises. Anarchy and large-scale violence were avoided.

The new president is likely to stick to a programme of economic reforms which he had begun to implement as prime minister. The plan proposes increases in income and corporation tax, the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, a public-sector hiring freeze and a stronger social-safety net to cushion the blow of the other policies. It was drawn up by a diverse group of activists and policy wonks. Its direction enjoys broad support even among members of the opposition. Getting the country’s finances into a state that is sufficient to obtain a bail-out from the imf is widely seen as a priority.

Politically, Mr Wickremesinghe has tried to sound conciliatory. In a speech to Parliament shortly after his election he acknowledged that Sri Lanka was in deep trouble and that young people in the country were demanding “systemic change”. He then announced talks with all parties represented in Parliament as soon as the following day. Before his election, he had begun work on curtailing some of the powers of Sri Lanka’s mighty executive presidency, though he had not committed to abolishing it, as protesters have demanded.

That may not be enough to convince the movement that drove out Mr Rajapaksa and whose aim is a wholesale change in the country’s politics. Given that Mr Wickremesinghe was prime minister, few expect major changes to the cabinet. He has been silent on the prospect of an early parliamentary election, another of the protesters’ demands. They see Mr Wickremesinghe’s ascendancy as a victory for the discredited political class they blame for the country’s travails. They say they will continue to occupy the presidential secretariat, which they took over on July 9th. Even a powerful executive presidency is, in the end, not immune to the wrath of the people it serves.

Source: The Economist

Security forces in Sri Lanka raided the main anti-government protest camp in the capital early on Friday, arresting protesters and dismantling tents.

Hundreds of troops and police commandos moved on the protesters outside the presidential offices in Colombo, hours before they were due to leave the area.

A BBC video journalist was beaten by the army and one soldier snatched his phone and deleted videos.

Nine people, including two who are injured, have been arrested by police.

Police described the incident as a “special operation to take [back] control of the presidential secretariat”.

When asked about the attack on the BBC journalist, one police spokesman said he was unaware of the incident.

It comes as Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as president on Thursday, after ex-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country last week.

Mr Wickremesinghe – the former prime minister – is seen as deeply unpopular with the public and has vowed tough action against demonstrators.

Separately on Friday, Dinesh Gunawardena – a senior politician considered to be a long-time Rajapaksa loyalist – took the oath as new prime minister, stepping into Mr Wickremesinghe’s former shoes.

Sri Lanka has seen months of mass unrest over an economic crisis and many blame the former government for mishandling the nation’s finances.

Protests had remained peaceful after Mr Wickremesinghe had been sworn into office on Thursday. Despite deep distrust, many demonstrators had said they would give him a chance to lead the country out of its economic crisis.

In remarks after his inauguration, he said any attempt to topple the government or occupy government buildings was not “not democracy, it is against the law”.

On Friday morning, security forces moved in on the protest camp and reclaimed the building from demonstrators, who had earlier pledged to hand the building back.

The raid took place in the early hours of Friday, at around 01:00 local time (19:30 GMT Thursday). Security forces later completely sealed off a section of the road leading to the site.

Tensions between the two groups continued to simmer in the afternoon as about 100 protesters stood off against security forces lined up in rows near the presidential offices.

Source: BBC News
Written by: George Wright & Frances Mao

Sri Lanka’s government debt has surged to around 126 percent of gross domestic product by the first quarter of 2022, with central bank debt contributing close to 10 percent of GDP in foreign debt, official data shows.

Sri Lanka’s central government debt rose to 21.6 trillion rupees of 117.4 percent of revised GDP by March 2022, from 104.6 percent as a ‘flexible exchange rate’ or soft-peg collapsed from 200 to 360 to the US dollar weighed down by a surrender requirement and low rates.

Government with central bank debt rose to 127 percent of GDP with the monetary authority borrowing money to finance either imports or debt repayments after printing money.

Gross central bank debt was around 9.58 billion rupees by March 2022.

About 1.8 billion in gross reserves borrowed from China are left with the central bank unable to use it due to prudential rules placed by China.

Goverment guaranteed debt of state enterprises topped 14 percent of GDP by April 2022, according to finance ministry data, taking the total to at least 140 percent of GDP.

By April however the rupee had depreciated further.

Sri Lanka’s central government debt started to climb with monetary instability worsening from the third quarter of 2014 with aggressive liquidity injections.

Sri Lanka was hit by currency crises in 2016 and 2018 as the central bank injected money through overnight repo, term repo and outright purchases of government securities driving up debt and slowing growth after each currency collapse.

Monetary instability came under ‘flexible’ inflation targeting and output gap targeting (printing money to boost growth) and the currency was allowed to depreciate after printing money through REER targeting a type of BBC (band, basket, crawl) policy advocated by Mercantilists in the 1980s.

In the seven years to 2022 there was monetary stability only in 2017 and 2019.

Sri Lanka’s central government debt ratcheted up from 72.3 percent of GDP in 2014 to 86.6 percent by 2019.

Source: Economy Next

Ranil Wickremesinghe took oaths as the 8th Executive President of Sri Lanka a short while ago. He was sworn in before Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya at the parliament complex.

Sri Lanka’s 225-member parliament voted Wickremesinghe in as the new Head of State with a total of 134 votes cast in his favour. He faced off SLPP’s dissident MP Dullas Alahapperuma who was polled second with 82 votes. NPP leader MP Anura Kumara Dissanayaka secured only 03 votes.

Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister had the backing of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the largest bloc in the parliament.

Two parliamentary members had abstained from voting while four of the 223 votes cast by the members were meanwhile found invalid.

The procedure for electing a succeeding president by Parliament is provided in the Constitution and the Presidential Elections (Special Provisions) Act (No. 2 of 1981), in the event of a vacancy in the office of the President before the end of the term. To be elected for the office of succeeding president, a candidate should get 50% or more votes from the valid number of votes.

Following the conclusion of the counting process, Secretary-General of Parliament, Dhammika Dasanayake announced to the House that Ranil Wickremesinghe was been elected as the 8th Executive President.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Presidential Elections (Special Provisions) Act (No. 2 of 1981), Wickremesinghe’s appointment was published in a special gazette notification last evening.

Wickremesinghe is thus qualified to hold the office of the President for the remaining term of the presidency, which was left vacant after his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa stepped down last week. Wickremesinghe was appointed as the caretaker president, Rajapaksa fled the country on a military plane to the Maldives and then took a commercial flight to Singapore.

He has held the office of prime minister six times although he never completed a term. His latest and shortest term in office as the prime minister was when former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him to the position on July 13 this year, after his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced to step down amidst growing public agitation over economic mismanagement and corruption allegations.

Brief history of new President Ranil Wickremesinghe

Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected to the 9th Parliament on June 23rd, 2021 as a National List Member representing the United National Party.

Born on March 24th, 1949, Ranil Wickremesinghe also held the position of Prime Minister of the previous Yahapalana government.

An alumnus of the Royal College of Colombo, Wickremesinghe was later selected to the Faculty of Law of the University of Colombo and sworn in as a lawyer.

He started his political career as the chief organizer of the United National Party in Kelaniya Constituency in the mid of 1970 and was later appointed as the chief organizer of the Biyagama Constituency.

In 1977, he was elected as a Member of Parliament for the first time and was the youngest cabinet minister in the J.R. Jayewardene government where he held the position of Minister of Youth Affairs and Employment.

He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the age of 28, and later served as the cabinet minister for Youth Affairs, Education and Industry, Science and Technology.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, who also served as the Leader of the House between March 06, 1989 and May 07, 1993, also served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2001 and from 2004 to 2015.

He was first elected as the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on May 7, 1993 and held that position until August 19, 1994. Ranil Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka for the second time from December 9, 2001 to April 2, 2004, for the third time from January 9, 2015 to August 21, 2015, for the fourth time from August 24, 2015 to October 26, 2018, and for the fifth time from December 16, 2018 to November 21, 2019.

Thereafter, given the resignation of the former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on the 9th of May, Ranil Wickremesinghe returned to the post of Prime Minister on the 12th of the same month in the capacity of Prime Minister.

Following the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa from the office of President, he became the Acting President from 14th as per the Constitution.

Source: Adaderana