Sri Lanka: President flees, PM resigns
Colombo. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has fled the country amid deepening economic crisis in Sri Lanka. In an unprecedented development, thousands of people from Sri Lanka barged into the Rashtrapati Bhavan and occupied it. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also resigned in an emergency meeting after the President’s escape. Now a national government will be formed by joining all the parties in the country. A few days ago, President Gotabaya’s brother and then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa also had to flee. Ranil Wickremesinghe became the Prime Minister in his place.
Significantly, Sri Lanka is going through a period of severe economic crisis. After depleting foreign exchange reserves, there has been a shortage in the country from petrol, diesel to electricity and essential food items and medicines. Protests against this have been going on continuously for the last several months. Troubled by the shortage of essential items, lakhs of people took to the road on Saturday and reached Rashtrapati Bhavan and occupied it. Seeing the mass rebellion, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In a video, he is seen running away from a Navy ship. It is being said that he has been taken to a safe place.
However, for the time being in Sri Lanka, a proposal has been made to make the Speaker of the National Assembly the interim President. After this, the exercise of forming a national government is going on. It is worth noting that in Sri Lanka, there has been a movement against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for a long time for ‘Gota Go Gama’ i.e. Gotabaya Quit the throne and go to your home. On Saturday, this movement turned into a huge mass movement. In view of the crowd, the police had to withdraw the curfew order, after which the people occupied the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
In view of the demonstration of the people, it was imposed in seven divisions of the Western Province including Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. But following mounting pressure from top lawyers’ union, human rights groups and political parties in Sri Lanka, police on Saturday lifted the curfew ahead of anti-government protests. This curfew was imposed from 9 pm on Friday till further notice. But it was withdrawn on Saturday after protests by civic groups. The Bar Association, a group of Sri Lankan lawyers, had opposed the curfew and called it a violation of the human rights of the people. Before Gotabaya escaped, a group of lawyers had also gone to meet him and questioned his ability to keep working even after such a massive protest.
