Sri Lankans have conducted continuous, violent protests in an attempt to oust the country's strongman president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, forcing the leader to depart to the Maldives on an air force jet on the day that he promised he would resign.
Rajapaksa is known to have been elected on the back of a chauvinistic roar of ultranationalism in the country. But the nation's residents forced him into making a meek, humiliating escape under the cover of darkness, refusing to even address his own people before fleeing.
Sri Lanka Crisis
One resident, 27-year-old Sineth Hindle, called Rajapaksa an "absolute coward," arguing that he filled his pockets with the people's money, bankrupted the country, and simply ran away. He noted that the president must be held accountable for his wrongdoings.
Rajapaksa made assurances that Wednesday would be the day he would step down from office, after months of protests calling for him to do so. However, as the morning dragged on into the night, there was still no word on the absentee president's promised resignation, putting the people of the country in an unprecedented state of political limbo, as per NDTV.
The people of Sri Lanka gathered on the streets of Colombo to pressure both the president and the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, into making way for a new government. Another resident, 32-year-old Nilahkshika Chamanthi, said that they would stay there all night, for days, or even years, to make sure that Rajapaksa resigns.
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Being a flight attendant for Sri Lanka airlines, she said that she had seen over the years the privileges that were at the disposal of the Rajapaksa family. The first was Mahinda, who was the president of the country between 2005 and 2015, and then Gotabaya after he was elected in 2019.
According to The Guardian, Chamanthi said that the family had two fleets of planes on standby at their disposal whenever they wanted and all the luxuries and VIP comfort anyone could only dream of having. She added that Rajapaksa always wasted the money of the country on his family with no care for other people.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa
Having been a president since 2019, Rajapaksa, along with his powerful family, is accused of mismanaging the country's economy, imposing ultranationalist policies that divided the nation down ethnic lines, and indulging in widespread corruption virtually bankrupting the once prosperous island in the process.
The situation has left barely a citizen unaffected as desperate tuk-tuk drivers speak of spending five days in the queue for petrol and NGOs have issued warnings that the nation could soon be facing a famine-like situation and growing fears of food shortages and inflation.
With Rajapaksa's resignation and covert fleeing of the country, the new president is set to be elected on July 20 after the resumption of parliament on July 16. Parliament speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said on Monday that the purpose of which was to ensure a new all-party unity government is in place as soon as possible in accordance with the country's Constitution.
The parliament speaker needs to be given an official letter of resignation to make Rajapaksa's ousting from the presidency official. He said that he was expecting to receive the document within the day, CNN reported.
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