The brother of Sri Lanka’s president and the country’s former finance minister, Basil Rajapaksa, said on Thursday that he has resigned from parliament, the second from an influential family that is away from the government amid a severe economic crisis.
Rajapaksa said, “From today I will not be involved in any government activities, but I cannot and will not move away from politics.”
“The aim is to allow someone from the party to be appointed to parliament instead of me,” he told reporters in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s commercial capital.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, elder brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, resigned Last month as prime minister turned deadly after prolonged protests against the economic crisis.
Mahinda continues to be an MP.
Rajapaksa’s three siblings have been key players in Sri Lankan politics for decades, but they have been accused by protesters who took to the streets In their thousands in recent months for mishandling the island nation’s economy.
Fighting between the brothers also played a part in Sri Lanka’s turmoil, but Tulsi Rajapaksa’s influence is likely to be maintained, Reuters has been informed.
The country of 22 million people is battling its worst economic crisis in seven decades with shortages of fuel, medicines and cooking gas as a severe foreign exchange crunch halted imports.
Sri Lanka’s new prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is now leading efforts to tide over the crisis, with talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan program and support from friendly countries including India and China.
Although there is a parliament with only one seat, Wickremesinghe is dependent on the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, which Basil Rajapaksa has helped rebuild into a political force.
“BR will continue to be a force in Sri Lankan politics despite not being an MP,” said Bhavani Fonseca, a senior researcher at the Colombo think-tank Center for Policy Analysis, referring to Basil Rajapaksa.
“The question is how much influence or control it has over the SLPP,” Fonseca said.
The SLPP and its coalition partners have a comfortable majority in the 225-seat legislature, and multiple sources have previously reported Reuters That members of the ruling party remain loyal to Tulsi Rajapaksa.
The veteran politician, who served as finance minister between July 2021 and April this year, denied that he had failed to slow Sri Lanka’s descent into financial turmoil.
“I was the first person to send a letter to the IMF after becoming the finance minister. The work I started is now being carried forward.”
“I have no regrets.”