10 Jul , 2022 By : Kanchan Joshi
The anti-government protesters in Sri Lanka, who forced their way into the Presidential palace on Saturday (July 9), continued to occupy the residences of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe.
A day before, the demonstrators had stormed into the premises and set on fire one of the buildings. Sri Lanka is still in the dark about the embattled President's whereabouts.
Several reports said that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country. Some videos emerged showing huge suitcases being loaded onto a Sri Lanka Navy ship.
It is only Parliament Speaker that the President has been in touch with. Late Saturday night, Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena announced that the President would resign on Wednesday.
President Rajapaksa informed the Speaker about this decision to quit after Abeywardena wrote to him seeking his resignation following the all-party meeting of leaders held Saturday evening.
Since the Prime Minister has also offered to resign, the Speaker would become the acting President. Later, an election among MPs must happen to elect a new President.
PM Wickremesinghe has also decided to quit the government.
In a statement, Wickremesinghe said, "This country is gripped with fuel and food shortages. There will be an important visit scheduled by the WFP next week while crucial talks have to be continued with the IMF. So if the current government is to quit it must be replaced by the next."
Speaker Abeywardena had asked President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe to resign immediately to make way for an all-party government. The development came on the day the cash-strapped country witnessed its biggest protest amid an unprecedented economic crisis.
The IMF on Sunday said that it was closely monitoring the ongoing developments in Sri Lanka and hoped that the political crisis will be resolved soon to allow for the resumption of dialogue on an IMF-supported programme in the country.
Meanwhile, 102 people, including 11 media personnel, were injured during the violent protests.
The Rajapaksa brothers, Mahinda and Gotabaya, were hailed by many in Sri Lanka as heroes for winning the civil war against the LTTE but they are now blamed for the country's worst economic crisis.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is under the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, crippled by an acute shortage of foreign exchange that has left it struggling to pay for essential imports of fuel, and other essentials.
Sri Lanka's total foreign debt stands at USD 51 billion.
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