In a show of fury against the worsening economic situation, protesters in Sri Lanka stormed the Presidential Secretariat on Saturday and set ablaze the private residence of the Prime Minister. In 2021, the island nation had the best Human Development Index (HDI) among nations in the Indian subcontinent and the second-best GDP per capita. Its descent into chaos in recent months is mostly a consequence of financial mismanagement and erratic policy decisions. The rapid erosion of democratic values in recent years is also a reason for the display of public anger. While democratic values were on the ascent in the post-war phase, they declined rapidly since the constitutional crisis in 2018
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Democratic values
The graph shows the gains made after the end of the civil war in 2009 (yellow) and the losses following the constitutional crisis in late 2018 (blue) when President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa. Later, when his decision was contested, he dissolved Parliament and called for a snap general election
* All the indices are on a scale of 0 to 1. Zero is the lowest score possible and one is highest
^ Compliance with the judiciary is measured on a scale of 0 to 4 0: Never 1: Seldom 2: About half the time 3: Usually 4: Always
@ Executive bribery is measured on a scale of 0 to 4 0: It is routine and expected 4: It never, or hardly ever, happens
# Ideology index is measured on a scale of 0 to 4 0: Not at all 1: To a small extent 2: To some extent but it is not the most important component 3: To a large extent but not exclusively 4: Almost exclusively
Source: V-Dem Institute, World Bank
Also read: In Sri Lankan crisis, a window of economic opportunity
Published - July 11, 2022 07:31 pm IST
