Protests broke out in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, on the 9th. President gothabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Lanier vikramasingha both said they would resign. According to Sri Lanka's law, if both the president and the prime minister resign, the speaker of the Parliament can serve as interim president for up to 30 days, and organize election activities to elect a new president during this period. Subsequently, the president appointed the prime minister, but the prime minister also needs to be approved by Parliament. The political unrest in Sri Lanka will continue in the short term, due to the long-term accumulation. Since the beginning of this year, Sri Lanka has been in serious shortage of food, oil and gas, medicine, etc., food prices have risen sharply, inflation has intensified, and the economy is on the verge of collapse. The Sri Lankan government previously announced "bankruptcy", and schools were forced to close, and public dissatisfaction continued to accumulate. According to the world food program, of the country's approximately 22million people, more than 6.2 million are facing food shortages, and about 61% of households have to reduce food consumption. In May this year, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the then prime minister, resigned, and then Vikram masinha became prime minister. However, this has not been able to resolve the difficulties facing the country's economy. Jayadwa uyangoda, Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Colombo, said that in the face of the deteriorating economic crisis, Sri Lanka's political situation may face more uncertainties in the coming period, and the new leaders in the future will also face severe challenges. Analysts believe that the deteriorating economic situation in Sri Lanka in recent years is the result of the joint action of internal and external factors. In terms of internal causes, Sri Lanka suffered from British colonial rule. The legacy of colonial economy has led to the country's economy still relying heavily on a few crops such as tea and rubber. The single economic structure leads to its weak ability to resist risks. In 2021, the Sri Lankan government promoted the development of organic agriculture and ordered to ban chemical fertilizers. Although the ban was later relaxed in the dissatisfaction of the public, experts estimated that the ban reduced the annual output of Sri Lanka's rice by about 43% and the export of economic crops such as rubber, coconut and tea by 40%. Many farmers have lost their sources of income. The reduction of crop production has led to soaring food prices, and a large number of people are in trouble. The impact on low-income groups is even greater. In terms of external factors, Sri Lanka's economy largely depends on foreign exchange earnings, and its means of production and daily necessities are highly dependent on imports. Tourism is one of the main sources of foreign exchange in Sri Lanka. After the outbreak of the COVID-19, the number of international tourists to Sri Lanka fell precipitously. Although the overall situation improved in 2021, it was not as good as before the epidemic. Affected by the epidemic, the remittance of overseas migrant workers, another important pillar of Sri Lanka's foreign exchange, has also decreased significantly. The superposition of the two led to a sharp decrease in Sri Lanka's foreign exchange income. Data released by the Ministry of finance of Sri Lanka in May this year showed that the country's available foreign exchange reserves had fallen to less than US $50million. Since February this year, the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine and other factors have led to the continuous rise in global food and energy prices, making it more difficult for Sri Lanka, which is already short of foreign exchange, to import enough food and energy, thus worsening its domestic inflation problem. Sri Lanka's inflation rate reached a record 54.6% in June, and the food inflation rate was as high as 80.1%. Viklamasingha said in early July that the country's inflation rate would reach 60% in the coming months. The website of Portuguese daily publica recently published an article saying, "Sri Lanka's problem has its own characteristics and is mainly caused by internal factors, but its collapse is also inseparable from a series of complex global phenomena". (Xinhua News Agency)