After months of mass popular protests over the worst economic crisis in decades, Sri Lanka’s leadership is bowing to pressure from the streets. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced their resignations over the weekend. The head of state will not vacate his office until July 13, said the speaker of the South Asian country’s parliament.
Angry demonstrators stormed the presidential palace and the presidential office on Saturday and set fire to the prime minister’s private residence. At least 95 people were injured in the protests, a hospital spokeswoman said on Sunday.
Sri Lanka: Protesters have occupied palace
The buildings stormed early on Saturday afternoon, the President’s office and the President’s Office, were still occupied on Sunday. The police used tear gas and soldiers fired warning shots into the air, as was seen on television pictures. Nevertheless, numerous people managed to break through the barriers. Videos on TV and social media showed protesters in the presidential palace pool and in luxuriously decorated hallways. Some recovered in beds and on sofas.
Late on Saturday evening, demonstrators then set fire to the prime minister’s residence, police reported. However, he was not in the building. Three suspects were arrested.
The island state south of India, with around 22 million inhabitants, is experiencing the worst economic crisis since independence from Great Britain in 1948. The anger of the demonstrators is directed, among other things, against a shortage of fuel and gas for cooking, but also medicine and food, which has existed for months against high inflation and hour-long power outages. One reason for this is that income from important tourism has collapsed in the wake of the corona pandemic. The heavily indebted country lacks the money to import important goods.
Due to the lack of fuel, the sale to private individuals was recently banned for two weeks, which triggered additional resentment among the population. On Friday, the government had promised to improve the supply of fuel, but this did not appease the demonstrators. They also accuse the Rajapaksa dynasty of politicians of wasting billions of dollars on oversized and unprofitable prestige buildings, such as a seaport, an airport, a cricket stadium and a convention center in their home district of Hambantota in the south, as well as the 350-meter-tall Lotus Tower -Lookout Tower in Colombo.