Left in Singapore, Gotabaya Rajapaka had sent an email to resign to Parliament. He is the first head of the State to be resigned since Sri Lanka opted for a presidential regime in 1978.
Le Monde with afp
The president of the Sri Lanka Parliament announced Friday, July 15, that he had accepted the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to the next day of his flight in exile after the invasion of his residence by demonstrators, who ended the occupation Public buildings in the capital Colombo. “Gotabaya has legally resigned,” Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana told journalists, the day after sending the resignation letter by e-mail.
m. Rajapaksa fled his residence on Saturday, assault by demonstrators reproaching him for his mismanagement when Sri Lanka is going through the most serious economic crisis in his history. He managed to get out of his country on Wednesday to go to the Maldives, where he took a plane for Singapore on Thursday, from where he sent his resignation letter.
In the capital Colombo, placed under curfew, a small crowd but jubilant, some brandishing the national flag, danced and sung to express his joy before the secretariat of the presidency when the news of his resignation was announced .
“We will continue our struggle”
“It is a monumental victory”, exclaimed Harinda Fonseka, one of the demonstrators. “But this is just a first step”. Under the Sri Lankan Constitution, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose departure is also claimed by the protesters, would automatically become interim president until Parliament designates a successor to Mr. Rajapaka.
Witnesses saw dozens of people leaving the offices of the head of government on Thursday and the police enter it. Armored troop transport vehicles patrolled in certain districts. “We are peacefully withdrawing from the presidential palace, the presidential secretariat and the offices of the Prime Minister with immediate effect, but we will continue our struggle,” said a spokesperson for demonstrators a little earlier.
A few hours before the announcement of the withdrawal, the police had pushed those who tried to enter the Parliament. The crowd had invaded the Prime Minister’s offices on Wednesday, after having done the same Saturday with the palace of the Head of State. Nearly 85 people were injured in the clashes, and a man died suffocated by tear gas. Hundreds of thousands of people have visited the presidential palace since its opening to the public after Mr. Rajapaka’s flight on Saturday. Thursday afternoon, the doors of the building were closed and kept by men in arms.
The army and the police received new orders on Thursday to firmly suppress all violence and warned the troublemakers that they were “legitimately empowered to exercise their strength”. Mr. Rajapaksa joined Singapore with his wife Ioma and their two bodyguards, aboard a apparatus from the Saudia airline.
According to the local press, he had initially demanded a private jet, refusing to take the plane with other passengers because of the hostile reception he had received upon his arrival at the Maldives on Wednesday.
an eventful arrival in Malé
He had been conspired and insulted when he left the airport and a demonstration against him had been organized in the capital Malé. As president, Mr. Rajapaksa could not legally be arrested. It seems that he wanted to go abroad before resigning to avoid a possible arrest.
The former president of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, who would have played a behind -the -scenes role to help him flee, said that he feared being killed if he stayed in Sri Lanka. According to diplomatic sources, the United States refused him a visa because he had given up his American citizenship in 2019 before being a presidential candidate.
Singapore will not be its final destination, the city-state having specified that Mr. Rajapaksa was on a private visit and that “he did not (vait) ask for the asylum”. Sources close to Sri Lankan security think that he will try to stay in Singapore before joining the United Arab Emirates. “He ruined our country with the Rajapaka family, so we do not trust him at all. We need a new government,” exclaimed Gihan Martyn, a 49 -year -old trader, who called him as “coward”.