The fugitive president of Sri Lanka has resigned.
The head of the Sri Lankan parliament announced that the fugitive president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has resigned and the parliament will convene to elect a new president.
Sri Lankan Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa confirmed Friday (July 15) the resignation of fugitive President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and said that the country’s parliament will meet on Saturday to begin the process of electing a new president. He added that he expects this process to last seven days.
The newly elected president will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. This person can appoint a new prime minister, who must then be approved by parliament.
According to the Associated Press news agency, Rajapaksa fled the country on Wednesday (July 13) amid growing protests and calls for his resignation. He arrived in Singapore on Thursday, and the country’s parliament speaker had said Rajapaksa’s resignation was effective from that date until he finally officially confirmed it today.
Earlier, this American news agency reported that the fugitive president of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is going to Saudi Arabia. According to the Associated Press report, Rajapaksa, who fled his country in the midst of the economic crisis and went to the Maldives, is considering going to Saudi Arabia.
A Maldivian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, told the news agency that Gotabaya Rajapaksa boarded a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight on Wednesday. According to this anonymous Maldivian official, he was supposed to take a Saudi plane to Singapore and from there to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The speaker of Sri Lanka’s parliament announced on Thursday that he had spoken to the president and asked him to submit his resignation letter as soon as possible. Yapa had warned that if the president did not act in submitting the letter of resignation, he as the Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka would consider other available options to remove him from his position.
Sri Lankan protesters stormed the presidential palace on Saturday amid growing anger over the management of the economic crisis that has paralyzed the country, and the president fled from the palace.
