Gota Go Home Desperate Sri Lankans Call For President Rajapaksa To Quit Editorial Image

He was once known as “The Terminator”, the most feared man in Sri Lankan politics. But today, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s name can hardly be spoken without a loud chorus of derision and calls of “thief”, “madman”, “criminal” or “traitor”.As Sri Lanka endures its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, blame has fallen at the feet of one man. Rajapaksa, known to many simply as Gota, was elected in 2019 amid nationalistic fervour and a wave of support from the country’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority. But over the past three years, under his watch – and what many are calling “criminal financial mismanagement” – the economy has gone into freefall. Now many people can barely afford three meals a day. “He has dragged this country down into the gutter and we are all suffering,” said Dinesh Galgamuwa, 47, who was among the protesters in Colombo.The mood of desperation across the country is evident. Foreign reserves are so low that the government cannot afford to import even basic supplies. People are dying in queues waiting for fuel and politicians have warned that starvation may be on the horizon, so pressing are the food shortages. Hospitals have started cutting down on surgeries as vital medicine and equipment run out, including cancer drugs and intubation tubes for babies.