Sri Lanka’s new PM wins opponents’ support to form crucial cabinet

Sri Lanka’s new prime minister won crucial support from two main opposition parties Monday, easing the pressure on the ruling Rajapaksa clan in the face of the island’s worsening economic crisis.

The main opposition SJB party appeared to drop its demands that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa should step down before backing a coalition to manage the crumbling economy.

However, the SJB or Samagi Jana Balawegaya, declined to join a unity government led by new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, but said it would “unconditionally support the positive efforts to revive the economy”.

“It is important to save the country from the grave economic crisis,” it said in a brief statement.

And the second-largest opposition party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), said it would join the cabinet.

Wickremesinghe’s appointment last week - his sixth turn as prime minister - has so far failed to quell public anger at the government for bringing Sri Lanka to the brink of economic collapse.

Till Sunday, Wickremesinghe was struggling to form a “unity government” and a cabinet swearing-in scheduled for Monday afternoon was pushed back as talks continued on sharing portfolios.

Four ministers were sworn in on Saturday, all from Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) party.

But there is no finance minister yet, and it is widely expected that Wickremesinghe will retain the crucial portfolio to lead ongoing negotiations with the IMF for an urgent bailout.

While addressing the nation Monday, the new prime minister said, crisis-hit Sri Lanka has run out of petrol and is unable to find dollars to finance essential imports.

“We have run out of petrol... At the moment, we only have petrol stocks for a single day,” Ranil Wickremesinghe said, warning his bankrupt country could face more hardships in the coming months.

He said the government was also unable to raise dollars to pay for three shipments of oil, with the ships waiting outside the Colombo harbour for payments before discharging their cargoes.

“The next couple of months will be the most difficult ones of our lives,” Wickremesinghe said. “I have no desire to hide the truth and to lie to the public.”

However, he urged people to “patiently bear the next couple of months” and vowed he could overcome the crisis.