On Monday, February 20th, 2023, the Sri Lankan police resisted antigovernmental protestors by firing tear gas on them. Thousands of opposition supporters, members of the Unite Peoples’ Power party and backers of Samagi Jana Balawegaya organized this protest to shout antigovernmental slogans in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The target of the protests were the government and presidential offices. These protests erupted to encourage the government to hold the upcoming as planned and to not postpone their election again. On March 9th of, 2022, the parliamentary elections were postponed because of the political and economic turmoil. From the details of the protest, does not appear to be violent but they were defying the police.

The hold-up of these elections have been blamed on the treasury for not funding the required amount to conduct voting. Many blame the government for attempting to delay the elections to maintain the majority in the parliament. Meaning the opposite party favored by the protesters would maintain the majority for a longer period because of the delayed election. Government coalitions and lawmakers state “it isn’t an appropriate time to hold elections because the country is still recovering from an economic crisis” (AP news).

The bankruptcy is becoming more apparent in Sri Lanka and the police using water cannons and tear gas has made international news.

How will India respond to this? India has been long term supporters of government reforms in Sri Lanka. Will the protestors influence the government’s decisions and maintain the timing of the elections?

https://apnews.com/article/politics-sri-lanka-colombo-e989ad0e5615b39bf6f35ae352535a4d

HR: source listed, grammarly, google

Susanna A. Kirchman