{"id":43539,"date":"2022-04-14T11:00:01","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T02:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/14\/sri-lanka-gotabaya-rajapaksag-gota-go-home-protests"},"modified":"2022-04-14T11:00:01","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T02:00:01","slug":"gota-go-home-desperate-sri-lankans-call-for-president-rajapaksa-to-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=43539","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Gota go home\u2019: desperate Sri Lankans call for President Rajapaksa to quit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Strongman Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s position looks weak amid an economic crisis that threatens to turn into starvation<\/p>\n<p>He was once known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/17\/the-terminator-how-gotabaya-rajapaksas-ruthless-streak-led-him-to-power-sri-lanka\">\u201cThe Terminator\u201d<\/a>, the most feared man in Sri Lankan politics. But today, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s name can hardly be spoken without a loud chorus of derision and calls of \u201cthief\u201d, \u201cmadman\u201d, \u201ccriminal\u201d or \u201ctraitor\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>As Sri Lanka endures its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/01\/sri-lanka-protesters-try-to-storm-presidents-house-as-economic-crisis-deepens\">blame has fallen at the feet of one man<\/a>. Rajapaksa, known to many simply as Gota, was elected in 2019 amid <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/17\/sri-lanka-presidential-candidate-rajapaksa-premadas-count-continues\">nationalistic fervour and a wave of support<\/a> from the country\u2019s Sinhalese Buddhist majority. But over the past three years, under his watch \u2013 and what many are calling \u201ccriminal financial mismanagement\u201d \u2013 the economy has gone into freefall. Now many people can barely afford three meals a day. \u201cHe has dragged this country down into the gutter and we are all suffering,\u201d said Dinesh Galgamuwa, 47, who was among the protesters in Colombo.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/14\/sri-lanka-gotabaya-rajapaksag-gota-go-home-protests\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Strongman Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s position looks weak amid an economic crisis that threatens to turn into starvationHe was once known as \u201cThe Terminator\u201d, the most feared man in Sri Lankan politics. But today, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s name can hardl&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,674,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/697"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43540,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43539\/revisions\/43540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}