After President Gotabaya Rajapaksa left to the Maldives on Wednesday, causing additional demonstrations and an economic crisis, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe proclaimed a state of emergency in his capacity as acting president.
Dinouk Colombage, Wickremesinghe’s media secretary, told Reuters that the prime minister, in his capacity as acting president, had proclaimed a state of emergency “around the nation” and instituted a curfew in the country’s western region.
There will be a curfew in effect immediately.
Thousands of people gathered at the major protest site in Colombo as word of the president’s trip circulated, calling him, “Gota thief.”
Hundreds more joined the first protesters and surrounded the prime minister’s office, shouting for Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s resignation.
The president’s resignation ends the two-decade reign of the Rajapaksa family over politics in the South Asian country.
Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Colombo to protest the ongoing economic catastrophe, which they blame on the Rajapakas’ and their supporters for causing inflation, corruption, and a serious shortage of gasoline and medicines.
The president’s brothers, the former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and the former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, are reportedly still in Sri Lanka, according to government officials and aides.
The Sri Lankan Air Force announced in a statement early on Wednesday that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife, and two bodyguards had departed the country using a military jet from the main international airport near Colombo.
Rajapaksa is reportedly in Male, the Maldives’ capital, according to a government source. An official government source stated that the president will thereafter go to another Asian nation.
As a result of protestors storming his and the prime minister’s official houses, Rajapaksa was expected to resign as president on Wednesday to pave room for a unity administration.
He has not heard from Rajapaksa, according to Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, who spoke with Reuters’ ANI affiliate. A member of the ruling party has said that the president would resign later today.
One of the protest organizers, Buddhi Prabodha Karunaratne, stated, “If we don’t hear of the resignation of the president and the prime minister by the evening, we may have to assemble together and take over parliament or another government facility.”
As a precaution, the United States Embassy in Colombo, which is located in the city’s core business sector, has announced that it would not be offering consular services this afternoon or on Thursday.
