Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa made his resignation official on Thursday after fleeing to Singapore amid mass protests against the country’s economic collapse.
Rajapaksa emailed a letter of resignation to the Speaker of Parliament, who said in a statement that he would verify the letter’s authenticity, complete the legal process and make an official announcement of the resignation on Friday.
In Colombo, the country’s commercial capital, police forces patrolled the streets on Thursday night, local time, to prevent the population from breaking the curfew.
Rajapaksa, who fled to the Maldives on Wednesday to escape a popular uprising that questioned his family’s role in the country’s economic crisis, headed to Singapore. A passenger on the flight who did not want to be named told Reuters news agency that Rajapaksa was met by a group of security and was seen leaving the airport’s VIP area in a convoy of black vehicles.
Airline officials on the flight told the agency that the president, dressed in black, flew in business class with his wife and two bodyguards, and described him as “easygoing” and “friendly”.
The Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that Rajapaksa entered the country on a private visit and did not apply for or receive asylum. His decision on Wednesday to make his ally Ranil Wickremesinghe interim president sparked further protests, with protesters storming parliament and the prime minister’s office demanding that he, too, resign.
“We want Ranil to go home,” said driver Malik Perera, 29, who took part in the protests. “They sold the country, we want a good person to take over, until then we won’t stop.”
Protests against the economic crisis have been simmering for months and peaked last weekend when hundreds of thousands of people took over government buildings in Colombo, blaming the powerful Rajapaksa family and their allies for runaway inflation, shortages of basic goods and corruption. .
Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards fled the country on a Sri Lankan Air Force plane on Wednesday and headed for the Maldives. Inside the president’s residence, ordinary Sinhalese wandered the halls on Thursday, enjoying the building’s extensive art collection, luxury cars and swimming pool.
“The fight is not over,” said student Terance Rodrigo, 26, who said he had been there since the building was taken over by protesters on Saturday (9), along with the prime minister’s official residence. “We have to make society better than that. The government is not solving people’s problems.”
On Thursday night, local time, protesters left the homes of the president and prime minister. “With the president out of the country, keeping the captured seats no longer has symbolic value,” said Chameera Dedduwage, one of the protest organizers.
