Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka , left the country on Wednesday, hours before he was sche...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka, left the country on Wednesday, hours before he was scheduled to resign after a populace uprising over a dire economic crisis toppled his family's stronghold over the island nation.
Thousands of protesters gathered at the major demonstration site in Colombo as word of the president's escape spread, screaming "Gota thief, Gota thief"—a nickname for him.
Numerous people surrounded the prime minister's office and clamoured for Ranil Wickremesinghe to resign.
According to the prime minister's press secretary Dinouk Colombage, Wickremesinghe, who is serving as acting president, has enforced a curfew in the western province and declared a state of emergency.
The president's departure marks the end of the Rajapaksa clan's reign as the nation's powerful political force over the previous two decades in South Asia.
Hundreds of thousands of people occupied important government buildings in Colombo last weekend as part of a protest against the economic crisis that had been building for months. The protestors blamed the Rajapaksas and their allies for rampant inflation, corruption, and a severe lack of fuel and medicine.
Former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, according to government officials and advisers, are still in Sri Lanka.
On a Sri Lankan Air Force plane early on Wednesday, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife, and two bodyguards departed the primary international airport close to Colombo, the air force stated in a statement.
Rajapaksa was reportedly in Male, the capital of the Maldives, according to a government source and a close friend of his. From there, the official source predicted that the president would travel to another Asian nation.
After demonstrators broke into the official houses of the president and the prime minister, Rajapaksa was scheduled to step down as president on Wednesday to make room for a unity administration.
The speaker of Sri Lanka's parliament, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, told Reuters partner ANI he had not yet heard from Rajapaksa. The president would submit a letter of resignation later on Wednesday, according to a source in the ruling party.
Despite his offer to resign, Wickremesinghe would then serve as the interim president. If he does, the speaker will, in accordance with the constitution, serve as the acting president until a new president is elected.
However, protest organisers claim the prime minister is a Rajapaksa family ally and have threatened a "decisive fight" if he does not step down by Wednesday afternoon.
One of the latest protest organisers, Buddhi Prabodha Karunaratne, said, "If we don't hear of the resignation of the president and the prime minister by the evening, we may have to gather together and take over parliament or another government facility."
"We vehemently oppose the Gota-Ranil administration. Both must leave."
Sri Lanka's sovereign bond prices on Wednesday sank to new record lows amid the country's chaotic political and economic situation.
As a precaution, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, which is located in the city's central core, announced it was suspending consular services for Thursday afternoon.
VULNERABLE TO PANDEMIC
The COVID-19 pandemic first devastated the island country's tourism-based economy, which afterwards suffered from a decline in remittances from Sri Lankans living abroad. Although the ban on chemical fertilisers was later lifted, it had an impact on output.
The Rajapaksas implemented populist tax cuts in 2019, which had an impact on government finances and limited imports of fuel, food, and medication due to falling foreign reserves.
Long lineups have formed in front of stores selling cooking gas as a result of the harsh rationing of gasoline. The central bank has warned that headline inflation, which reached 54.6 percent last month, could reach 70 percent in the coming months.
The president's older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned from his position as prime minister in May as a result of violent demonstrations against the family. He spent a few days in hiding at a military facility in the country's east before making his way back to Colombo.
Mohammed Nasheed, the former president and speaker of the Maldives parliament, was appointed by the Rajapaksa administration in May to assist in coordinating international aid for Sri Lanka, which is currently experiencing a crisis.
Nasheed officially refuted claims that he was assisting Mahinda Rajapaksa in obtaining safe haven in the Maldives the same month.
The president of Sri Lanka reportedly landed in the Maldives early on Wednesday, according to local media sources, though Reuters was unable to independently confirm this.
A Reuters request for comment was not answered by a Maldives government spokeswoman.
Immigration officers in Sri Lanka stopped Basil Rajapaksa from leaving the country on Tuesday.
It was unclear where Basil Rajapaksa, who is also a citizen of the United States, was attempting to go. On the heels of protracted public demonstrations, he resigned as finance minister in early April and his seat in parliament in June.
