Highlight
- The Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka formally announced the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
- The speaker said that Rajapaksa has sent his resignation through email.
- On July 16, the process of electing the new President will be discussed in Parliament.
Sri Lankan Crisis: Sri Lankan Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abhayavardhan formally announced the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Friday, a day after he submitted his resignation to him. The speaker said that Rajapaksa has sent his resignation through email. On July 16, i.e. tomorrow, the session of Parliament will be called, in which the process of election of the new President will be discussed.
The Speaker urged the public to allow a peaceful environment for all the MPs to participate in the process which should end within 7 days.
The Sri Lankan Parliament will meet on Saturday.
According to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the current Prime Minister will become the acting President. Now that Rajapaksa has formally resigned, Ranil Wickremesinghe will take over as acting president until the presidency is refilled.
Last Saturday, Rajapaksa announced his resignation on July 13, after thousands of protesters stormed his official residence, blaming him for the unprecedented economic crisis that brought the country to its knees.
However, he fled to Maldives without resigning from his post. He had gone to Singapore from Maldives on Thursday. A spokesman for Singapore’s foreign ministry said Rajapaksa was “allowed to enter Singapore on a private visit”.
Rajapaksa was the first person with military background to be elected as the President of Sri Lanka in 2019.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is in the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and other essentials.