Rajapaksa not only needs to go, he needs to face accountability
Al JazeeraLast week, a new prime minister of Sri Lanka was sworn in. Amid widespread protests resulting from the island’s gravest economic crisis since independence, parliament clearly thinks this is a figure to steady the ship. But without acquiescing to the protesters’ key and repeated demand – for the discredited President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down – this is merely rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. The people put the blame for Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in 70 years squarely on the bumbling and sinister rule of President Rajapaksa. Our IMF interlocutors must know that Sri Lankans’ seething anger will not be quelled by the quick appointment of a prime minister from a party that holds one seat in parliament while the president that presided over the mess is untouchable.