Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe secured a nearly $3 billion bailout from the IMF that opens the door to restructuring about $58 billion of debt and receive funding from other lenders. He has done that despite a deeply unpopular government
Since then, Wickremesinghe has managed to a keep a lid on mass protests, improve supplies of essentials and on Monday,from the International Monetary Fund that opens the door to restructuring about $58 billion of debt and receive funding from other lenders.
But due largely to significant hikes in income taxes and power tariffs that were needed to get the IMF on board, the government of the 73-year-old is no favourite of the people." poll run in February by private think-tank Verité Research, the government's approval rating was 10%, the same as in October but higher than an all-time low of 3% in June, when Rajapaksa was in power.
For now, Wickremesinghe is enjoying that support, and he said on Sunday that his country was on the right track. The Paris Club of creditors, which includes Japan, earlier this year gave financing assurances to support the IMF deal. He still has to turn around the economy, which shrank 7.8% in 2022 and is expected to contract by 3% this year.
"One year on, there is no real structural change in governance or system change," said Bhavani Fonseka, senior researcher at Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives.
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