Sherry Fonseka joined millions in 2019 in electing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a military strategist whose brutal campaign helped end Sri Lanka’s 30-year civil war 10 years earlier.
Now he is one of the thousands who, for weeks, have protested outside the president’s office, calling on Rajapaksa and his brother, Mahinda, who is prime minister, to resign for leading the country into its worst economic crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948.
With the island teetering near bankruptcy, and in major debt from around the world. Fonseka, who owns a small garment business in the capital, Colombo, has resorted to spending his own savings to pay the salaries of his 30 employees. But he knows he will soon have to let them go and is clear about who is to blame.
“All of us thought we made the correct decision (to elect Rajapaksa), but we’ve realized we were wrong. We should have the backbone to tell people, and the world, that we made a mistake,” he said.
In recent weeks, protests have erupted across the country demanding that Rajapaksa quit.
The protests highlight the dramatic fall of the Rajapaksas from Sri Lanka’s most powerful political dynasty in decades to a family grasping to retain power. Despite accusations of atrocities during the civil war, Gotabaya and Mahinda, who was previously president, remained heroes to many of the island’s Buddhist-Sinhalese majority and were firmly entrenched at the top of Sri Lankan politics before the revolt by previous supporters like Fonseka.
Tanya Singh is pursuing Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Chandigarh University. She is a passionate blogger, who understands the power of words. Tanya is currently working as an Intern at The Shining Media and she is reachable at tanya2801singh@gmail.com
