Sri Lanka's ruling coalition lost its majority in parliament after at least 41 lawmakers withdrew from the alliance amid widespread anti-government protests over price hikes and power outages.

Yesterday, Monday, April 4, 2022, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed 4 new ministers, of whom the Finance Minister resigned immediately after his appointment, and 27 ministerial positions remained vacant. The president also called on opposition politicians to accept ministerial positions, but they refused and demanded new elections.

Only President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa remained in the government. Among the resigned ministers are two of the President's relatives, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa and Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa.. So what is the story of the Republic of Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka

Name: Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

Short name: Sri Lanka.

Capital: Colombo.

Language: Sinhala (official), Tamil (national language), English, and other languages.

The political system: a republic consisting of a head of state, and a parliament consisting of 225 members whose mission is to issue laws in the country.

The electors choose the president and members of parliament for a 6-year term, and the president appoints the prime minister and members of his government.

The United National Party is the largest political party in the country, along with other important parties such as the Freedom Party and the United Liberal Tamil Party.

Sri Lanka is divided into 9 provinces, which in turn are divided into 25 provinces, and the centers are the basic units of local government in the country.

The date of independence from the United Kingdom (National Day) the fourth of February 1948.

Currency: Sri Lankan rupee.

Location: an island in the northern Indian Ocean off the coast of southern India in southern Asia.

Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest, the Maldives to the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal to the northeast.

Area: 65,610 square kilometers.

The central part of the country is mountainous, while the plains are surrounded by mountains in the east, south and west, and cover most of the northern half of the island.

Natural resources: limestone, graphite, precious stones and phosphates.

The most important products: rubber, tea, coconut, tobacco, tourism, clothing, textiles, rice, sugar cane, and grains.


Climate: tropical.

Population: 21 million and 670 thousand people (estimated in 2022).

Ethnic distribution: 73.8% Sinhalese, 7.2% Moors (of Arab origin), 4.6% Indian Tamils, 3.9% Sri Lankan Tamils, 0.5% others, 10% unspecified.

Religion: 69.1% Buddhist, 7.6% Muslim, 7.1% Hindu, 6.2% Christian, 10% unspecified.

Ceylon .. Ancestors of the Vedas

Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon until 1972, and its first inhabitants were tribesmen known as Yaksa and Naga, the ancestors of the Vedas.

It is said that Prince Vijaria of northern India was the one who led the founders of the Sinhalese civilization to Ceylon, and the influx of Sinhalese began in the fifth century BC, so they resided in the northern part of the island, and established modern irrigation methods to support agriculture.

The city of Anward Ahapura was the center of the Sinhalese civilization in the period between the third century BC and 993 AD.

The Indian Tamils ​​invaded the island in the early 2nd century BC.

From the fifth century AD, until the arrival of the Portuguese, the history of the island centered on the conflict between the Sinhalese kings and the Tamil kings. ).

16th century: European control over Ceylon began when the Portuguese sailed to what is now known as the port of Colombo in 1505, and soon took control of the main coastal areas on the island, and the Dutch replaced the Portuguese in the mid-17th century.

Between 1795 and 1796: The English were able to control the Dutch colonies, and made Ceylon a colony in 1802, and also seized the Sinhalese mountain kingdom of Kandy in 1815, thus becoming the first Europeans to rule the entire island.

The English were able to develop the cultivation of coffee, coconut, rubber and tea.

Autonomy

The colony gained self-government in the twentieth century, and was known as the independent state of Ceylon on February 4, 1948.

The country adopted a parliamentary form of government headed by a prime minister, and Dudley Senanaike became the first prime minister of Ceylon.

As for Bandaranaike, he became prime minister in 1956, and his government was able to pass a law making Sinhala the only official language in the country, and the Tamil tribes opposed this law, and the conflict broke out between the Tamils ​​and the Sinhalese.

It was agreed to make the Tamil language dominant in several other regions.

1959: President Bandaranaike was assassinated by a Sinhalese extremist, and his widow Sirimavo Bandaranaike became prime minister in 1960, becoming the first woman in the world to hold this position.

1965: The Sirimavo Bandaranaike Party loses its majority in Parliament and Dudley Senanaike becomes Prime Minister.

shining earth

1970: Sirimavo Bandaranaike regained the position.

1972: The name of the country was changed to Sri Lanka, which means the shining or radiant land.

- The relationship between Tamil and Sinhalese is the main concern;

The Sinhalese have ruled the country since independence, and the Tamils ​​believe that the Sinhalese have restricted employment and education opportunities to their community only.

1983: Violence and riots broke out between Tamil gangs and Sinhalese government forces in the north, killing thousands of people, and more than 100,000 Tamils ​​fled to India.

July 1987: The governments of India and Sri Lanka announced a plan calling for peace in Sri Lanka, and the plan was based on a ceasefire and the establishment of a local government council in Tamil, and some Tamil fighters agreed to the plan and others opposed it, and fighting broke out again in the same year.

June 1989: The ceasefire is implemented again.

1990: The Sinhalese patriots opposing any agreement between the government and the Tamils ​​managed to kill a large number of state employees loyal to the regime, and the fighting was renewed again between the Tamil rebels and the government forces, in which hundreds of citizens were killed.

May 1993: The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) assassinates President Ranasinghe Premadasa and is succeeded by former Prime Minister Dungri Banda.

Freedom Party

1994: Elections were held to choose a new president. The opposition People's Alliance coalition led by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, leader of the Freedom Party, won.

Bandaranaike became the second woman in Sri Lanka to hold this high position.

Bandaranaike appointed her mother Sirimavo Bandaranaike as Prime Minister.

December 1999: Chandrika Bandaranaike is injured in the right eye during a failed assassination attempt.

October 2000: Her mother Sirimavo Bandaranaike died at a time of intensification of fighting by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Jaffna peninsula.

- In the same month, the People's Alliance coalition won the elections, and Bandaranaike began a new presidential term that lasted until 2005.

The position was taken over by Mahinda Rajapaksa and held it until 2015.

2015: Maithripala Sirisena wins the presidency as the candidate of the opposition coalition, and his victory in the elections is considered a surprise.

2019: Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed the position, and he previously held the position of Minister of Defense and Urban Development (2005-2015) under the administration of his older brother, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa led the Sri Lankan armed forces in their confrontation with the Tamil Tigers, which ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers and the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, after a 30-year conflict, which the Sinhalese majority considers a national hero.

The last crisis

Protests continue in this Southeast Asian country due to the severe shortage of basic commodities, the huge rise in prices and power outages for long hours, in the complete absence of any indication of an end to the economic crisis

April 1, 2022: The president imposed a state of emergency after hundreds of protesters tried to storm his home in the capital, Colombo.

Sri Lanka has become heavily indebted and urgently needs the dollar to import fuel, gas, food and medicine from abroad. It has requested assistance from India and China to purchase food and fuel, as well as financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

- This Asian country is witnessing continuous power cuts for periods of up to 13 hours a day, and the Corona pandemic has depleted its lucrative tourism industry and remittances from workers abroad.

Public finances have been further hit by the massive tax cuts that Rajapaksa promised during his 2019 election campaign.