Rajapaksa's brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned as prime minister in May without a replacement. Wikre Misingh, 73, who was originally an opposition MP, has stepped in as prime minister for the sixth time. The economic crisis sparked public grievances, and tens of thousands of protesters stormed the presidential palace. After Rajapaksa fled on July 9,
Wickremisingh was re-elected as president. Rajapaksa, who fled to Singapore, resigned five days later, and Wickremisingh first became acting phone database president before being confirmed to take over by a parliamentary vote. Sri Lanka's 22 million people have endured power outages, record-high inflation and shortages of food, fuel and medicine for months. Since the end of last year (2021), Sri Lanka has run out of foreign exchange reserves and cannot pay for the most basic imported materials. The government defaulted on $51 billion in foreign debt in April and negotiated a bailout with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The economy will decline further this year (2022), with an estimated 7% contraction, but a recovery is expected in tomorrow (2023), Wickremisingh told the monks.
"I'm working on re-stabilizing the economy, resetting it in a way that the country can grow by 2023, 2024. It's a tough job, but it's going to be harder if we don't do it now. We should think about whether to do it or not," he said. We should try to provide a prescription to heal the patient, or just let the patient die.” He mentioned that the current inflation rate has soared to 60.8%, and I am afraid it will continue to rise.