Sri Lanka president vows to finish term

Gotabaya Rajapaksa says he won’t stand for re-election but wants to fix the financial mess rather than ‘go as a failed president’.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa vowed to finish the remaining two years in his term despite months-long street protests calling for his ouster, but won’t stand for re-election as he focuses on fixing a financial mess that tipped Sri Lanka into its worst-ever economic crisis.

“I can’t go as a failed president,” Rajapaksa said Monday in a wide-ranging interview at his official residence in Colombo, his first with a foreign media organization since the crisis unfolded. “I have been given a mandate for five years. I will not contest again.”

The defiance comes in the face of slogans of “Gota Go Home,” with protesters blaming Rajapaksa and his family for decisions that led to severe shortages of everything from fuel to medicine, stoking inflation to 40% and forcing a historic debt default. Thousands of demonstrators have camped outside the president’s seaside office since mid-March, forcing him to retreat to his barricaded official residence about a kilometer away.

The economic tailspin spiraled into political turmoil with the resignation of the president’s old brother — Mahinda Rajapaksa — as the nation’s prime minister after clashes between government supporters and the protesters turned bloody in May.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is seeking about $6 billion in aid over six months from the International Monetary Fund and countries including India and China, Wickemesinghe told parliament on Tuesday. Stocks plunged for a third day with the blue-chip S&P Sri Lanka 20 Index down 3.6% as of 11:15 a.m. in Colombo Tuesday. The rupee has lost about 82% over the past year and the nation’s debt is trading deep in the distressed territory.

“This is unlikely to placate protesters who are calling for his immediate resignation,” said Patrick Curran, an economist at Tellimer. “With presidential elections more than two years away, Rajapaksa’s decision to see his term through will contribute to heightened political uncertainty over the next couple years and could hamper reform efforts.”

The president said he wanted to replicate his previous successful stints serving the nation. Gotabaya Rajapaksa oversaw the urban development authority and was Sri Lanka’s defense secretary under then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, when they crushed a 30-year civil war in 2009.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES