Sri Lanka president Gotabaya Rajapaksa misses resignation deadline

International

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Colombo, July 14: Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa missed a deadline announced by the Parliament Speaker to submit his resignation after he fled the country for Maldives as months of inflation-fueled protests gained momentum.

Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said has not the resignation letter of the embattled President who departed from Sri Lanka hours before he was expected to resign.

In an exclusive conversation with ANI, Abeywardena said, “We haven’t received President Gotabaya’s resignation yet, but we hope to get one in a day.”

The 73-year-old had gone into hiding after crowds of protestors stormed his residence on July 9 and he had announced that he will resign on July 13. Sri Lankan authorities later confirmed that Gotabaya had flown to Maldives with his wife and two bodyguards after after full approval of the country’s Defence Ministry.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to leave for Singapore: Reports

In a statement, the Sri Lankan Air Force also said that the move was done under the executive powers vested with the president.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is now an acting president, has declared a state of emergency in the country and a curfew in the Western province had been imposed. He was sworn in as the President for a temporary period till a new President is elected by Parliament on July 20 and nominations for the presidency will be called for on July 19.

The development comes after thousands of people stormed into the President’s House in Fort on Saturday. The dramatic visuals also came from PM’s official residence where they were seen playing carrom board, sleeping on the sofa, enjoying in park premises and preparing food for dinner.

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. To escape from public anger, embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday fled to the Maldives from where he appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as the acting President, which escalated the political crisis and triggered fresh protests in the country.