Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa calls for ‘pro-people struggle' to mitigate economic crisis

Thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets across Sri Lanka since April 9

Sri Lanka's beleaguered President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Sunday urged all political parties to set aside their differences and appealed to the protesting citizens to join hands to steer a "pro-people struggle", amidst growing demands for his government's immediate resignation over its failure to tackle the country’s worst economic crisis.

His message to the people on International Workers' Day came a day after the powerful Buddhist clergy in the island nation warned that people would be influenced to reject all politicians if Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Mr. Gotabaya's elder brother, did not resign to make way for an interim government to resolve the political and economic crisis in the country.

"On this #InternationalWorkersDay, I once again invite all political party leaders in #lka to come to a consensus on behalf of the people. It's my sincere wish to call on the people to join hands to steer a pro-people struggle setting aside political differences," Gotabaya tweeted.

Sri Lanka is currently in the throes of unprecedented economic turmoil since its independence from Britain in 1948. The crisis is caused in part by a lack of foreign currency, which has meant that the country cannot afford to pay for imports of staple foods and fuel, leading to acute shortages and very high prices.

On Thursday, nearly 1,000 trade unions staged a one-day nationwide strike, demanding the immediate resignation of the government, including President Gotabaya and Prime Minister Mahinda.

The unions from a number of sectors, including the state service, health, ports, electricity, education and postal joined the strike under the theme ‘Bow to the people - government go home’, urging the President, the Prime Minister and the government to ‘go home’.

In his May Day message, Mr. Gotabaya said instead of following up on who is responsible for the current problematic situation, what is needed is to focus on what action can be taken to provide immediate relief to the public, online portal newsfirst.lk reported.