The president and prime minister of Sri Lanka have both agreed to resign on what has turned into the country’s most chaotic day in months of political turmoil.
Ranil Wickremesinghe promised to step down as PM on Saturday once a new government is in place. Hours later, speaker in parliament said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will quit on Wednesday.
Video images showed jubilant crowds taking a dip in the garden pool. Others sprawled on beds, helped themselves to tea and issued statements from a conference room demanding that the president and prime minister go. Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said in a televised statement that he informed Rajapaksa that parliamentary leaders had met and decided to request he leave office, and the president agreed.‘He asked me to inform the country that he will make his resignation on Wednesday, July 13, because there is a need to hand over power peacefully.
Wickremesinghe announced his own impending resignation but said he would not step down until a new government is formed, angering protesters who demanded his immediate departure. But people’s patience wore thin as shortages of fuel, medicine and cooking gas only increased and oil reserves ran dry.
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