Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksa said he will resign on Wednesday after thousands of Sri Lankans stormed into his official residence asking him to step down.
President Rajapaksa Gotabaya has officially informed PM Ranil Wickremesinghe that he will resign on Wednesday, July 13, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Monday. After Saturday’s sweeping protests in rage over his mishandling of the country’s worst economic turmoil. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe also said he was willing to resign and make way for an all-party government to take over.
On Sunday, the opposition parties held a meeting and agreed upon forming an all-party interim government after the President and PM agreed to resign. The appointment of a new president and the formation of a new government will be discussed at the meeting, as per the reports.
Leaders of the protest movement have said crowds would keep occupying the residences of the president and prime minister in Colombo until they finally quit office. Colombo, Sri Lanka’s largest city, was calm on Monday as hundreds of people strolled into the president’s secretariat and residence and toured the colonial-era buildings. Police made no attempt to stop anyone.
Current situation in Sri Lanka :
Sri Lanka is a country of 22 million people which currently is facing major economic crisis, the worst in seven decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and other essentials.
Schools have been suspended and fuel has been limited to essential services. Patients are unable to travel to hospitals due to the fuel shortage and food prices are rising. The frequency of the trains are reduced. In major cities, hundreds of people are forced to stand in line for hours to buy fuel, sometimes clashing with police and the military as they wait.
The country, with an acute foreign currency crisis that resulted in foreign debt default, had announced in April that it is suspending nearly USD 7 billion foreign debt repayment due for this year out of about USD 25 billion due through 2026. Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt stands at USD 51 billion.
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