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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, 13 Jul (AP) \u2014 Sri Lanka\u2019s president fled the country without stepping down Wednesday, plunging a country already reeling from economic chaos into more political turmoil. Protesters demanding a change in leadership then trained their ire on the prime minister and stormed his office.<\/p>\n
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife left aboard an air force plane bound for the Maldives \u2014 and he made his prime minister the acting president in his absence. That appeared to only further roil passions in the island nation, which has been gripped for months by an economic meltdown that has triggered severe shortages of food and fuel.<\/p>\n
Thousands of protesters \u2014 who had anticipated that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe would be appointed acting president and wanted him gone\u2014 rallied outside his office compound and some scaled the walls. The crowd roared its support for and tossed water bottles to those charging in.<\/p>\n
Dozens could later be seen inside the office or standing on a rooftop terrace waving Sri Lanka\u2019s flag \u2014 the latest in a series of takeovers of government buildings by demonstrators seeking a new government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need both … to go home,\u201d said Supun Eranga, a 28-year-old civil servant in the crowd. \u201cRanil couldn\u2019t deliver what he promised during his two months, so he should quit. All Ranil did was try to protect the Rajapaksas.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Wickremesinghe, who declared a state of emergency, appeared on television to reiterate that he would not leave until a new government was in place \u2014 and it was not clear when that would happen, with the opposition deeply fractured.<\/p>\n
Although he fled, Rajapaksa has yet to resign, but the speaker of the parliament said the president assured him he would later in the day.<\/p>\n
The political impasse has only threatened to worsen the bankrupt nation\u2019s economic collapse since the absence of an alternative government could delay a hoped-for bailout from the International Monetary Fund. In the meantime, the country is relying on aid from neighboring India and from China.<\/p>\n
Police initially used tear gas to try to disperse the protesters outside the prime minister\u2019s office but failed, and more and more marched down the lane toward the compound. As helicopters flew overhead, some demonstrators held up their middle fingers.<\/p>\n
Eventually security forces appeared to give up, with some retreating from the area and others simply standing around the overrun compound. Inside the building, the mood was celebratory, as people sprawled on elegant sofas, watched TV, and held mock meetings in wood-paneled conference rooms. Some wandered around as if touring a museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will cook here, eat here and live here. We will stay until (Wickremesinghe) hands over his resignation,\u201d said Lahiru Ishara, 32, a supervisor at a supermarket in Colombo who has been a part of the protests since they kicked off in April. \u201cThere\u2019s no other alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, protesters seized the president\u2019s home and office and the official residence of the prime minister following months of demonstrations that have all but dismantled the Rajapaksa family\u2019s political dynasty, which ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning, Sri Lankans continued to stream into the presidential palace, where people have flocked for days \u2014 swimming in the pool, marveling at the paintings and lounging on the beds piled high with pillows.<\/p>\n
At dawn, the protesters took a break from chanting as the Sri Lankan national anthem blared from speakers. A few waved the flag.<\/p>\n
Protesters accuse the president and his relatives of siphoning money from government coffers for years and Rajapaksa\u2019s administration of hastening the country\u2019s collapse by mismanaging the economy.<\/p>\n
The family has denied the corruption allegations, but Rajapaksa acknowledged some of his policies contributed to the meltdown, which has left the island nation laden with debt and unable to pay for imports of basic necessities.<\/p>\n
The shortages have sown despair among Sri Lanka\u2019s 22 million people and were all the more shocking because, before the recent crisis, the economy had been expanding and a comfortable middle class was growing.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only Gotabaya and Ranil, all 225 members of Parliament should go home. Because for the last few decades, family politics have ruined our country,\u201d said Madusanka Perera, a laborer who came to Colombo from the outskirts the day protesters occupied the first government buildings. He lost his job, and his father, a driver, can\u2019t do his because of fuel shortages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 29 years old \u2014 I should be having the best time of life but instead I don\u2019t have a job, no money and no life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As the protests escalated Wednesday outside the prime minister\u2019s compound, his office imposed a state of emergency that gives broader powers to the military and police and declared an immediate curfew in the western province that includes Colombo. It was unclear what effect the curfew would have: Some ignored it, while many others rarely leave their homes anyway because of fuel shortages.<\/p>\n
In his TV appearance, Wickremesinghe said he created a committee of police and military chiefs to restore order.<\/p>\n
The air force earlier said in a statement that it provided an aircraft, with the defense ministry approval, for the president and his wife to travel to the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean known for exclusive tourist resorts. It said all immigration and customs laws were followed.<\/p>\n
The whereabouts of other family members who had served in the government, including several who resigned their posts in recent months, were uncertain.<\/p>\n
Sri Lankan presidents are protected from arrest while in power, and it is likely Rajapaksa planned his escape while he still had constitutional immunity. A corruption lawsuit against him in his former role as a defense official was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019.<\/p>\n
Assuming Rajapaksa resigns as planned, Sri Lankan lawmakers agreed to elect a new president on July 20 who will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa\u2019s term, which ends in 2024. That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cGotabaya resigning is one problem solved \u2014 but there are so many more,\u201d said Bhasura Wickremesinghe, a 24-year-old student of maritime electrical engineering, who is not related to the prime minister.<\/p>\n
He complained that Sri Lankan politics have been dominated for years by \u201cold politicians\u201d who all need to go. \u201cPolitics needs to be treated like a job \u2014 you need to have qualifications that get you hired, not because of what your last name is,\u201d he said, referring to the Rajapaksa family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, 13 Jul (AP) \u2014 Sri Lanka\u2019s president fled the country without stepping down Wednesday, plunging a country already reeling from economic chaos into more political turmoil. Protesters demanding a change in leadership then trained their ire on the prime minister and stormed his office. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife left aboard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-195392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}