Tens of thousands of people overran Rajapaksa’s public residence last month over acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines endured by Sri Lanka’s 22 million people since late a year ago.
Wickremesinghe said the only way to escape the crisis had been “if we all encounter this challenge with each other as one people”, and asked all events in parliament to join his initiative for any “unity government”.
Sri Lanka was considered a prosperous middle-income country before defaulting initially on its foreign debt of US$51 billion in mid-April.
The country has run out of foreign currency to finance imports with officials estimating the country urgently needs at least US$4 billion to bring in important goods and deal with current shortages.
Wickremesinghe has been top talks with the International Monetary Fund to obtain a four-year bailout program. He told parliament the negotiations were progressing but did not provide a timeline for when a deal would be finalised.
Motorists spend times waiting to buy rationed fuel while the nation faces lengthy electricity blackouts. Inflation provides crossed 60 per cent.
Wickremesinghe thanked India for granting credit lines to transfer petrol and diesel powered, but said Colombo must be able to pay with its own foreign currency earnings and that rationing would continue a minimum of till the end of this year.
He or she also criticised Rajapaksa for rejecting 2 major infrastructure purchases from Japan that could have brought in US$3 billion.
The cancellation of a gentle rail transit (LRT) and a deep-sea terminal at the Colombo port also damaged the particular ties between The japanese and Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe said.
However , the pro-West Wickremesinghe did not refer to Cina which owns over 10 per cent of Sri Lanka’s bilateral loans. Beijing’s contract is crucial for any financial debt restructuring deal.