Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation was formally accepted by the speaker of Sri Lanka's ...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation was formally accepted by the speaker of Sri Lanka's parliament on Friday after he fled to Singapore to avoid a popular uprising sparked by the nation's worst economic crisis in seven decades.
Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the speaker, told reporters, "From this moment, we shall seek to constitutionally appoint a new president." "It will take place swiftly and effectively. I kindly ask everyone to assist this effort."
Rajapaksa flew into the Maldives early on Wednesday with his wife and two security personnel before landing in Singapore on Thursday. Last Saturday, protesters surrounded his home and place of business.
"We feel that when we, the people, get together, we can do everything," said Arunanandan, 34, a schoolteacher who had been camped out at the major protest site across from the presidential secretariat for the previous three months. "We are really glad today that he resigned."
"We are our nation's true power,"
The speaker first received word of Rajapaksa's resignation via email before receiving a paper copy, which led to celebration in Sri Lanka's capital city of Colombo late on Thursday.
At the Gota Go Gama protest site, which was mockingly named after Rajapaksa's first name, crowds lit firecrackers, screamed slogans, and danced wildly.
Speaker Abeywardena announced that parliament would resume on Saturday and that he intended to have chosen a new president in seven days. The weekend meeting's agenda will be established on Friday, and parliament was supposed to vote on the next president on July 20.
The acting president will be Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the preferred candidate for the ruling party to assume the position permanently, though no decision has been made. Sajith Premadasa is the opposition's choice, but senior lawmaker Dullas Alahapperuma is a possible surprise.
Hundreds of thousands of people occupied government buildings in Colombo last weekend as part of a street protest against Sri Lanka's economic crisis, which had been simmering for months. The protesters blamed the Rajapaksa family and their allies for rampant inflation, shortages of essential goods, and corruption.
Serpentine lines outside gas stations have become the norm, and in an effort to save gasoline, the government has closed schools and mandated office workers work from home. The 22 million-person nation has nearly run out of external loans and money for imports.
The central bank has warned that headline inflation, which reached 54.6 percent last month, could reach 70 percent in the coming months.
The recent government instability has put a stop to Sri Lanka's preliminary discussions with the International Monetary Fund regarding a potential bailout loan.
IMF employees were still in communication with technical-level government officials, but Gerry Rice, an IMF spokesperson, said on Thursday that he intended to begin high-level dialogue "as soon as feasible."
