Colombo, July 13 (BNA) Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country on Wednesday, hours before he was due to step down after a popular uprising over a devastating economic crisis ended his strong grip on the island nation.
As news of the president’s escape spread, thousands of people gathered at the main protest site in Colombo chanting “Gotha thief, Gotha thief,” referring to him as a nickname.
Hundreds of others stormed the prime minister’s office, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Reuters reports.
Prime Minister’s Press Secretary Dinok Columbag told Reuters that Wickremesinghe, in his capacity as acting president, had declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the western province.
The president’s trip ends the escape of the rule of the powerful Rajapaksa clan that has dominated politics in the South Asian country for the past two decades.
Protests against the economic crisis have been simmering for months, culminating last weekend when hundreds of thousands of people took over key government buildings in Colombo, blaming the Rajapaksas family and their allies for hyperinflation, corruption and acute shortages of fuel and medicine.
Government sources and aides said the president’s two brothers, former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, are still in Sri Lanka.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards departed the main international airport near Colombo on board a Sri Lankan Air Force plane early Wednesday morning, the air force said in a statement.
A government source and a person close to Rajapaksa said he was in Mali, the capital of the Maldives. The government source said the president is likely to move to another Asian country from there.
Rajapaksa was due to step down as president on Wednesday to make way for a unity government after protesters stormed his residence and the prime minister’s residence.
Sri Lanka has been run by the powerful Rajapaksa family for the greater part of the last two decades. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President of the country in November 2019.
Mahinda Yapa Abiwardena, the speaker of Sri Lanka’s parliament, told Reuters partner ANI that he had not yet received any contact from Rajapaksa.
A ruling party source said the president would send his resignation letter later on Wednesday.
This would make Wickremesinghe the acting president, though he also offered to resign. If he does, the Speaker will be the Acting President until a new President is elected, in accordance with the Constitution.
Protest leaders, however, say the prime minister is allied with Rajapaksas and have warned of a “decisive battle” if he does not resign on Wednesday afternoon.
“If we don’t hear about the president and prime minister’s resignation by evening, we may have to assemble and seize Parliament or another government building,” said Budi Praboda Karunaratne, one of the organizers of the recent protests.
“We are firmly opposed to the government of Jota Ranil. Both must go.”
Amid economic and political chaos, Sri Lanka’s sovereign bond prices hit new record lows on Wednesday.
The US embassy in Colombo, located in the central region of the city, said it has canceled consular services in the afternoon and Thursday as a precaution.
victim of the epidemic
The island nation’s tourism-dependent economy was hit first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then suffered from a drop in remittances from Sri Lankans abroad. A ban on chemical fertilizers hurt production, although the ban was later rescinded.
The Rajapaksas implemented populist tax cuts in 2019 that affected the government’s public finances while shrinking foreign reserves curtailed imports of fuel, food and medicine.
Gasoline was severely rationed and long queues formed in front of shops selling cooking gas. The overall inflation rate was 54.6% last month and the central bank warned that it could rise to 70% in the coming months.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president’s older brother, resigned as prime minister in May after protests against the family turned violent. He remained hidden in a military base in the east of the country for several days before returning to Colombo.
In May, the Rajapaksa government appointed Muhammad Nasheed, the Speaker of the Parliament of the Maldives and the former president, to help coordinate foreign aid to crisis-hit Sri Lanka.
That same month, Nasheed publicly denied allegations that he was helping Mahinda Rajapaksa in a safe haven in the Maldives.
Media reports in the Maldives said the Sri Lankan president arrived in the country early on Wednesday, although Reuters could not independently verify this.
A Maldivian government spokesman did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
On Tuesday, Sri Lankan immigration officials banned Basil Rajapaksa from traveling outside the country.
It was not clear where Basil Rajapaksa, who also holds US citizenship, was trying to go. He resigned as finance minister in early April amid violent street protests and resigned his seat in Parliament in June.