LAST: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigns on July 13, reports the news agency AFP. “To ensure a peaceful transition, the president has said he will step down on July 13,” parliamentary speaker Mahinda Abeywardena said in a televised speech. It happens on the same day as the country’s president Ranil Wickremesinghes complied with demands from the leaders of the various political parties in parliament to resign. He agrees that a broad coalition government will take over Sri Lanka. Wickremesinghe’s private home in Colombo is said to have been stormed and set on fire on Saturday night local time. This is stated by the police and the Prime Minister’s office, according to AFP. Stormed the presidential palace Some of the protesters wearing helmets and with the Sri Lankan flag in hand have on Saturday managed to enter the residence, pictures from a local TV station show. Local media report that the protesters have entered the president’s office. President Rajapaksa was evacuated by the military last night ahead of this weekend’s demonstrations. Protesters believe the president is responsible for the country’s economic crisis, the worst since independence in 1948. The protesters storm the president’s residence in Colombo, Sri Lanka. There is great political unrest in Sri Lanka and the police had imposed a curfew in the capital ahead of the new demonstrations on Saturday, which demand that the president and prime minister resign. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe is also condemned for not doing enough to quell the crisis since he was appointed two months ago. Some of the protesters took a bath in the pool at the president’s residence. Believes the security forces failed to act Øivind Fuglerud is a Sri Lankan expert, and has followed the situation in the country closely in recent months. He says Saturday’s big demonstrations are something completely new by Sri Lankan standards. – It is very special, and there is something completely new in the Sri Lankan political landscape. I can not remember having seen anything similar before, says Fuglerud to news. Sri Lanka expert Øivind Fuglerud believes that the security forces in the country deliberately failed to intervene in the demonstrations. Photo: Cultural History Museum At the same time, he is not surprised. – I’m not surprised at all. The demonstrations that have taken place today have been announced for a long time. It has been mobilized in various circles to gather people in Colombo for demonstrations today, says Fuglerud. The most shocking thing, however, is that the security forces seem to have failed to stop the protesters who tried to enter the presidential palace, the expert claims. – What is most significant is that the security forces have not stopped the demonstrators, something they would obviously have been able to do if they wanted to, Fuglerud believes. The news agency AFP writes on Saturday afternoon that elite forces from the police did not make any attempt to remove the protesters as they walked around the area to the presidential residence. The police and military forces that protected the presidential residence are also said to have withdrawn, writes AFP. Think the president also goes today President Rajapaksa was evacuated from the residence on Friday. Fuglerud thinks he may be on his way out of the country, and that it is only a matter of time before he also resigns from his position. – It would surprise me if he was sitting now. I think that in practice he has already resigned during the day, says Fuglerud. He says that while there are negative aspects to the demonstrations, such as the vandalization of public buildings, they bring hope for further development in the country. Rent increases in petrol and food prices Thousands of people have descended on Colombo’s government quarter. They shout slogans and tear down police roadblocks. The police, for their part, respond with tear gas. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Problems have arisen for Sri Lanka, which is struggling with a foreign currency deficit. There is a great shortage of fuel, food and medicine. The country is now in the worst economic problems in decades. Many blame the president. There have been many large, peaceful demonstrations in the country since March this year. Here, a member of parliament is said to have been attacked by the protesters.
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The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka resigns – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
