Citizens party after Sri Lanka president resigns
Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has now officially resigned, following mass protests against him. The now former president fled the country to Maldives on Wednesday, and flew from there to Singapore yesterday, an unnamed security source told CNN. After Gotabaya arrived in Singapore, parliament speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena announced that Gotabaya had tendered his resignation.
Mahinda said the country’s PM Ranil Wickremesinghe will remain acting President until the parliament elects a new president. Lawmakers have been summoned to meet on Saturday to start the process.
After hearing the news, Sri Lankans cheered and set off fireworks last night. The celebrations across Sri Lanka’s streets lasted late into the night. Gotabaya’s resignation comes months after Sri Lankans had protested day and night for solutions to the country’s shortage of fuel, food, and medicines.
Last week, over 100,000 protestors stormed the presidential palace. A video showed the large crowd even swimming in the president’s swimming pool. Following the chaos, a meeting of party leaders agreed to ask both the president and PM to resign as per an “overwhelming request” according to Sri Lankan lawmaker Rauff Hakeem. Now that Gotabaya has finally resigned, Sri Lankans have been partying.
Even though Sri Lankans are rejoicing now, many are still fighting for Gotabaya to be held accountable for Sri Lanka’s alleged economic mismanagement. One celebrator, 29 year old Mariyan Malki, told CNN…
“We keep on fighting. We are fighting until Rajapaksa is properly accused and until some action is taken… we are fighting as one nation until he is getting proper punishment for whatever he has done.”
SOURCE: CNN
