Gotabaya Rajapaksa informs PM’s office of resignation intention as brother Basil is turned away at airport and opposition leader signals plan to run for president
Sri Lanka’s government has confirmed the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is to resign, paving the way for the appointment of a successor, amid reports that the beleaguered leader had fled the country on Monday.
Even as the resignation announcement was made, the whereabouts of the president remained unknown. He has not been publicly seen since he was escorted out of his presidential palace on Saturday morning and kept under the protection of the navy in an undisclosed location.Reports and statements by officials circulated on Monday that the president had been flown to an airbase near the international airport.
Rajapaksa has been president since November 2019 and, alongside five other members of his family who held senior political posts,. Sri Lanka’s reserves of foreign currency have run dry and the country is facing a humanitarian crisis, according to the UN, as it has been unable to import food, fuel and medicines. Many struggle to have one meal a day, and people are forced to wait in queues lasting up to five days waiting for petrol.
The caretaker government is expected to last only six to eight months, until Sri Lanka’s circumstances improve and a parliamentary election is economically viable.Ahilan Kadirgamar, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Jaffna, said that the president’s resignation had been “building up over the last six months when it became clear he had lost the legitimacy of the people”.
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