We don't have experience in Building the Country- Harini Amarasooriya
A bastion of authoritarian political men and policies took the country into issuing risky international sovereign bonds with a global financial architecture stacked against the global South. Add to that potent mix corruption amongst the political classes, vested business interests and structural failures in the economy, where (green) manufacturing was not promoted and the country’s populace is addicted to unaffordable imports. The debt crisis did not happen in a year or two but was decades in the making, with structural conditions unaddressed. It is, as Amarasuiriya, sassily quipped: "We don’t have experience in bankrupting the country but we will gain experience in building the country", when asked about the common criticism levied against the NPP on its lack of experience. [...] Amarasuriya is a member of the Progressive Women’s Collective, part of the NPP, with clear aspirations for working class women in the country even as she is conscious that feminist politics is not about pigeon-holing herself as the spokesperson for a narrow women’s caucus. Her feminist perspectives, too, came under attack when a self-made businessman, having lost his bid at the presidential election (as a Communist Party candidate), condemned Amarasuriya via social media for her "external" views and lifestyle: a dangerous woman, without saying as much.