Sri Lanka Protestors Storm Presidential Palace Amid Economic Collapse, Incompetence, And Corruption

If you were thinking of planning a relaxing vacation to Sri Lanka any time soon, you’d might as well turn right around and think again! Over the past three months, this little Indian Ocean nation has been disintegrating economically. Inflation is currently over 50% and is expected to continue to soar. There are shortages of food and fuel, and the country defaulted on its foreign debt in May. Does some of that sound familiar? Yes, and it’s terrifying!

There’s more. Protestors have stormed the presidential palace, the military has fired shots (though they assure us they’ve only fired into the air), and the people have run the president out of town. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka, fled the country just hours before he was set to resign. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the country’s prime minister, has taken over as acting president and declared a state of emergency, but the protesters don’t want him either. Some are wondering if the military will step in and run the country until a new government is in place, but some experts warn that only a civilian leadership would be able to quickly secure international loans or some other form of support to stabilize the economy and resume the import of food and fuel.

Economists are blaming a lot of Sri Lanka’s economic struggles on government corruption (hello, still sounds familiar) as well as grandiose infrastructure projects that emptied the treasury (omg, déjà vu). The government spent tons of money on projects that didn’t benefit the country, signed 99-year leases with China, then, instead of using the money to pay off their earlier debt the government, used it to add to its foreign reserves and honor unrelated foreign debt obligations. I mean, are you trying to collapse the country? Because this is how you collapse a country.

Sri Lanka is seeking to restructure debts of more than $50 BILLION that it owes to foreign creditors in order to make it more manageable to repay. Whenever it’s in place, the new government will also be responsible for fixing the shortage of foreign currency and rising inflation that have led to severe shortages of living essentials.

Professor Mick Moore from the University of Sussex and former consultant on Sri Lanka for the Asian Development Bank said this was not the effects of global economic problems. He told BBC’s Today, “This is the most man-made and voluntary economic crisis of which I know.” In other words, a soup sandwich of epic proportions.