Repost from The Federalist.
Videos of Sri Lankans swimming in their president’s pool and tens of thousands swarming his residence went viral over the weekend, but precious little news of the green policies that left the island nation in anarchy made headlines.
After months of protests, the Sri Lankan people stormed the presidential suite and burned the prime minister’s residence on Saturday after both leaders escaped. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on Wednesday after resigning, and the prime minister is promising his resignation as soon as a replacement appears.
The fuel has run out in Sri Lanka, with tuk-tuk drivers being forced to wait for days just to fill their eight-liter tanks. Power blackouts are a daily occurrence. The inflation rate in Sri Lanka reached a whopping 54.6 percent in June, and the growing cost of food, clothing, transportation, and electricity — some of which are three times the normal price — has tanked the value of the rupee. Being an island country, catching fresh fish instead of buying food would be a relief, but there’s no diesel to go out to sea to fish for them.
This crisis in Sri Lanka started in 2019. Run down by years of gross mismanagement over successive governments, Sri Lanka was saddled with mounting debt and inadequate production rates. Rajapaksa succeeded his brother in 2019, and his administration issued deep tax cuts which only made the situation worse.