Sri Lanka President to resign
Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has confirmed he will be stepping down from his role, the prime minister’s office has said. The resignation comes after tens of thousands of protesters stormed the official residences of both men.
Sri Lanka is in a deep financial crisis and the crowds who have stormed both residences say they won’t leave until both men resigned from their posts.
The parliament Speaker had said the president would resign on 13 July, but under Sri Lanka’s constitution, his resignation can only formally be accepted when he resigns by letter to the Speaker – which has not yet happened.
The current whereabouts of the president are unknown, he has now spoken publicly since his residence was stormed on Saturday. But the BBC reports that they have been informed by sources he is on a navy vessel in Sri Lankan waters.
The president has widely been blamed for the country’s economic mismanagement, which has caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine for months.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe had earlier said he would also be stepping down.
Palace storming amid protests
For many months, Sri Lankans have been peacefully protesting the soaring cost of living and shortages of essentials.
On Saturday, the protests took a new turn when crowds stormed the palace. Huge crowds turned up at the official residence of President Rajapaksa, chanting slogans and waving flags. Before long they had broken through the barricades and entered the property.
Footage posted online showed people roaming through the residence and swimming in the pool, while others emptied out a chest of drawers, and looked through the president’s belongings.
He left the official residence on Friday as a safety precaution ahead of planned protests, according to Reuters.
Many won’t believe the resignations until they see them happen according to Sky News correspondent Nicole Johnston, who’s at the president palace speaking to many protesters.
“Until that happens they’re going to continue to occupy the president’s house as well as a number of key buildings around the city,” Johnston added.
Many of the protesters have their children with them, as schools have been closed for weeks due to lack of electricity to run them.
The country has “burned through all its foreign currency (and) doesn’t have enough money for food, fuel, or medicine,” Johnston added.
“Public servants have been told to take Friday off, to go home and grow food,” she said.
The country has asked for money from the International Monetary Fund, Japan, Russia, China and Qatar.
“They’ve also been told that for five years they can go abroad, take another job, send that money back to Sri Lanka and then eventually they’ll still have their job here. That’s just how desperate this country is.”
The Sky News correspondent said that the atmosphere has changed since Saturday and now the mood in the palace is “almost a festival or carnival atmosphere here.”
With no fuel and no cash, Sri Lanka grinds to a halt
Aljazeera says Sri Lanka has less than a day’s worth of fuel left, the energy minister says, with public transport grinding to a halt as the country’s economic crisis deepens.
Power and energy minister Kanchana Wijesekera on Sunday said petrol reserves were about 4,000 tonnes, just below one day’s worth of consumption, as queues snaked through the main city of Colombo for kilometres.
The cash-strapped nation on Sunday extended school closures because there is not enough fuel for teachers and parents to get children to classrooms, with most pumping stations being without fuel for days.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Al Jazeera last week the petrol shortage will last until July 22 when the next oil shipment is expected. He said a gas deal has been secured which will ensure supplies for the next four months.
