Sri Lanka's embattled president won't seek new term
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will finish the remaining two years of his term despite months-long street protests calling for his ouster but won’t stand for re-election, he told Bloomberg on Monday. Sri Lanka is suffering its worst economic crisis in decades. "I have been given a mandate for five years. I will not contest again," Rajapaksa said in the interview at his official residence in Colombo. Anti-government protestors blame Rajapaksa and his family for decisions that led to severe shortages of everything from fuel to medicine, stoking inflation of 40 percent and forcing an historic debt default. Thousands of demonstrators have camped outside the president’s seaside office since mid-March, forcing him to retreat to his barricaded official residence about a kilometer away. The economic tailspin spiraled into political turmoil with the resignation of the president’s old brother -- Mahinda Rajapaksa -- as the nation’s prime minister, after clashes between government supporters and the protesters turned bloody in May. Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe are now seeking about US$4 billion in aid this year from the International Monetary Fund and countries including India and China. Sri Lanka’s rupee has lost about 82 percent over the past year and the central bank on Monday flagged the possibility of a further correction. The nation’s debt is trading in deeply-distressed territory. (Reuters)