Rajapaksa’s resignation accepted
Sri Lankan PM sworn in as acting president; Parliament to elect new president Wednesday
This is a historical moment for all Sri Lankans. We were assaulted, put in prisons, put on travel bans, some of our friends laid their lives down. With all these hardships we have come through. We have no fear anymore.
Jeevantha Peiris
COLOMBO: The resignation of Sri Lanka’s president has been accepted, the crisis-hit country’s parliamentary speaker announced yesterday, after he fled the country earlier this week, prompting relief among protesters camped outside his former offices.
The formal declaration makes Gotabaya Rajapaksa – once known as ‘The Terminator’ for his ruthless crushing of the Tamil rebellion – the first Sri Lankan head of state to resign since it adopted an executive presidency in 1978. He emailed in his notice from Singapore after flying to the city-state from the Maldives, where he initially escaped after demonstrators overran his palace at the weekend.
“The president has officially resigned from his position,” speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana told reporters.
Outside the presidential secretariat, at the makeshift headquarters of a months-long protest movement against Rajapaksa, Catholic priest Jeevantha Peiris told AFP: “This is a historical moment for all Sri Lankans.
“We were assaulted, put in prisons, put on travel bans, some of our friends laid their lives down. With all these hardships we have come through. We have no fear anymore,” the 45-yearold said.
The former president, he added, was a ‘bloodthirsty criminal’ who should return to Sri Lanka to face justice. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as acting president – his accession was automatic under Sri Lanka’s constitution – but many of the demonstrators see him as complicit in the rule of the Rajapaksas and also want him to go.
Parliament will meet on Wednesday to elect an MP to succeed Rajapaksa for the rest of his term, the speaker’s office said, with nominations due the previous day.
Rajapaksa’s departure came after months of protests over what critics said was his mismanagement of the island nation’s economy, leading to severe hardships for its 22 million people.
He, his wife Ioma and their two bodyguards arrived in Singapore from the Maldives on board a Saudia airline flight.
As president, Rajapaksa enjoyed immunity from arrest, and he is understood to have wanted to go abroad before stepping down to avoid the possibility of being detained.
The former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed is believed to have played a behind-the-scenes role in getting him out of the country, and said Rajapaksa feared he would be killed if he remained.
“I believe the President would not have resigned if he were still in Sri Lanka, and fearful of losing his life,” Nasheed tweeted.
Singapore’s foreign ministry confirmed Rajapaksa had been allowed to enter the city-state for a ‘private visit’, adding: “He has not asked for asylum and neither has he been granted any asylum.”
He is expected to look to stay in Singapore for some time, according to Sri Lankan security sources, before potentially moving to the United Arab Emirates.