Crisis-hit Sri Lanka celebrates I-Day with smaller parade, fewer aircraft

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Tuesday said that Sri Lanka must work in unison to achieve economic freedom rather than yield to vulnerabilities within the global economic system.

Addressing the 77th Independence Day celebrations of the island nation, Dissanayake said, “Collectively, we must persist in our struggle for freedom on behalf of this motherland.”

“To secure our economic freedom, rather than succumbing to weakness in the global economic system and being overwhelmed by its every fluctuation, we must unite in our efforts for this motherland,” said the 56-year-old president.

In keeping with his government’s policy of minimizing state expenditures as the island nation struggles to emerge from the 2022 economic crisis, this year’s celebrations saw a reduction in the usual pomp and pageantry.

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Only 1,800 military personnel were deployed in the parade, a reduction of over 1,500 personnel from last year. From last year’s 19 aircraft, this morning’s celebrations featured only three aircraft.

Dissanayake, who was elected president in a narrow win in September’s presidential election, created history for his National People’s Power (NPP) party in the parliamentary election held in November last year.

His party won two-thirds of control in the 225-member assembly and more significantly, overwhelming support in the Tamil regions. The Tamils had eschewed support for the main Sinhala community political parties in Sri Lanka’s political history.

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This was the first time that a government had won two-thirds control or over 150 seats in a parliamentary election held since 1989.

Dissanayake inherited an economy battered by the 2022 crisis. He has completed the long-drawn-out-debt restructuring of the island’s external debt  -– a process all but completed by his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe before last year’s presidential election.  The island nation, in April 2022, declared its first-ever sovereign default since gaining independence from Britain in 1948.