COLOMBO
\nSri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was booed and heckled on Sunday on his first public outing since protests erupted across the country demanding his ruling family resign over the worsening economic crisis.
\nMonths of blackouts and acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines have caused widespread suffering across the South Asian Island, which is enduring its worst-ever economic downturn.
\nSunday saw the premier, brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, visit one of the holiest Buddhist temples \u2014 housing a reputedly 23-century-old tree \u2014 in Anuradhapura.
\nBut dozens of men and women carried hand-written placards and chanted slogans demanding that \u201cthieves\u201d be banned from the sacred city, which lies 200 kilometres north of Colombo.
\n\u201cWe will worship you if you stand down (as Prime Minister) and leave,\u201d one man shouted.
\nHeavily armed Special Task Force (STF) commandos were deployed while police moved to clear the road for Rajapaksa\u2019s convoy of six vehicles. Officials said the premier would return to the capital by helicopter.
\nSeveral major roads in the country are blocked by people protesting the lack of cooking gas, petrol and diesel.
\nThe defence ministry in a statement said demonstrators were behaving in a \u201cprovocative and threatening manner\u201d and disrupting essential services.
\nThe government imposed a state of emergency granting the military sweeping powers to arrest and detain people on Friday, after trade unions brought the country to a virtual standstill in a bid to pressure President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down.
\nThe president, 72, has not been seen in public since tens of thousands attempted to storm hos privet residence in Colombo on March 31.
\nSince April 9, thousands have been camping in front of his office in Colombo.
\nMahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s visit to Anuradhapura is part of a flurry of religious activity by the ruling family as it clings onto power in the Buddhist-majority nation.
\nLocal media reported that the president\u2019s personal shaman, Gnana Akka, had charmed bottled water and delivered it to the protest site in the hope the movement would fizzle out.
\nAnother report said the premier\u2019s wife Shiranthi, a Catholic, had visited a Hindu temple seeking divine help for her family\u2019s bid to remain in power.
\nSources say the president may ask his brother Mahinda to stand down in an effort to clear the way for a unity government to navigate Sri Lanka through the crisis.
\nBut the country\u2019s largest opposition party has already said it will not join any government helmed by a member of the Rajapaksa clan.
\nSri Lanka was hit by an economic crisis after the coronavirus pandemic hammered income from tourism and remittances.
\nIn April, the country announced it was defaulting on its $51 billion foreign debt.
\nFinance Minister Ali Sabry warned last week that the country will have to endure unprecedented economic hardship for at least two more years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
COLOMBO Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was booed and heckled on Sunday on his first public outing since protests erupted across the country demanding his ruling family resign over the worsening economic crisis. Months of blackouts and acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines have caused widespread suffering across the South Asian Island, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6950,1288,1286],"class_list":{"0":"post-259341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"tag-crowds","9":"tag-mahinda-rajapaksa","10":"tag-sri-lanka-pm"},"yoast_head":"\n