প্রকাশ: 13/07/2022
Sri Lankan President
Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country early on Wednesday, two sources told
Reuters, hours before he was due to step down amid widespread protests over his
handling of a devastating economic crisis.
Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards left aboard a Sri
Lankan Air Force plane, an immigration official told Reuters.
A government source said he left for the city of Male, the
capital of the Maldives. The president would most likely proceed to another
Asian country from there, the source said.
The immigration official said authorities could not under
law prevent a sitting president from leaving the country.
Rajapaksa was due to step down as president on Wednesday to
make way for a unity government, after thousands of protesters stormed his and
the prime minister's official residences on Saturday demanding their ouster.
The president has not been seen in public since Friday.
Parliament will elect his replacement on July 20.
The Rajapaksa family, including former prime minister Mahinda
Rajapaksa, has dominated the politics of the country of 22 million for years
and most Sri Lankans blame them for current problems.
The tourism-dependent economy was hammered badly by the
COVID-19 pandemic and a fall in remittances from overseas Sri Lankans, while a
ban on chemical fertilisers damaged farm output. The ban was later reversed.
The Rajapaksas implemented populist tax cuts in 2019 that
affected government finances while shrinking foreign reserves curtailed imports
of fuel, food and medicines.
Petrol has been severely rationed and long lines have formed
in front of shops selling cooking gas. Headline inflation hit 54.6% last month
and the central bank has warned that it could rise to 70% in coming months.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president's brother, resigned as
prime minister in May after protests against the family turned violent. He
remained in hiding at a military base in the east of the country for some days
before returning to Colombo.
Protests against the government have simmered since May, but
erupted afresh last Saturday when hundreds of thousands of people surged into
Colombo and occupied key government buildings and residences.
On Tuesday, immigration officials prevented another of the
president's brothers, former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, from flying out
of the country.
It was not clear where Basil Rajapaksa, who also holds U.S.
citizenship, was trying to go. He resigned as finance minister in early April
amid heavy street protests against fuel and food shortages, and quit his seat
in parliament in June.
- Reuters
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