COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled his official residence on Saturday shortly before protesters, angered by an unprecedented economic crisis, overran the compound and stormed inside.
The immediate whereabouts of the president, who has rebuffed repeated demands for his resignation, are not known. But Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe called an emergency meeting of political party leaders, at which he said he intended to step down and make way for a new unity government.
The prime minister said via Twitter that he had accepted “the best recommendations” of party leaders to step down to “ensure the continuation of the government including the safety of all citizens".
He said fuel distribution was about to resume and a debt sustainability proposal to the International Monetary Fund would be finalised shortly, according to a statement from his media office.
The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce called on Rajapaksa to resign immediately as “he has lost the trust and confidence of the people as aptly demonstrated by the heightened protests witnessed today on an unprecedented scale around the President’s House and President’s Office”.
The business group asked the political party leaders to come to a decision and pave the way for a smooth transition of power.
The developments came after thousands of demonstrators broke through police barricades outside the president’s official residence, braving tear gas and water cannons, earlier in the day.
Hundreds of protesters, waving Sri Lankan flags and wearing helmets, broke into the residence, video footage from the TV channel NewsFirst showed. Pictures of them swimming in the presidential pool were posted on social media.
Hundreds also milled about on the grounds outside the colonial-era white-washed building. No security officials were visible.
Rajapaksa left the residence at about 10am, his secretary Gamini Senarath said over the phone, adding that he could not contact the leader currently and didn’t know his whereabouts.
“The president was escorted to safety,” a defence source told AFP. “He is still the president, he is being protected by a military unit.”
At least 21 people, including two police were injured and hospitalised in the ongoing protests, hospital sources told Reuters.
Civil-rights activists, religious leaders and artists were among thousands from across the island who gathered at an oceanfront protest site near the presidential residence.
Omalpe Sobitha, a senior Buddhist monk and an outspoken critic of the government, told reporters the crisis is not the result of famine or natural disaster but misgovernance. (Story continues below)
Sri Lanka is in the worst tailspin of its independent history, with inflation seen hitting 70%. It has been facing shortages of everything from fuel to medicine for months, prompting protests that led to the resignations of all the Rajapaksa family members who were in the government, except for the president.
Rajapaksa has sidestepped incessant demands for his resignation. Hoping to defuse the crisis, he appointed Wickremesinghe, his long-time opponent, as prime minister in May.
Police imposed a curfew in and around parts of Colombo on Friday night after thousands of university students, who had marched toward Rajapaksa’s residence, were tear-gassed.
Earlier this week, a Colombo court rejected a government request to bar the protesters from being in close proximity to the president’s official residence.
Economic activity in Sri Lanka has come to a grinding halt, with residents urged to stay home until Sunday to save fuel. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka on Thursday raised its benchmark lending interest rate by one percentage point to 15.5% as prices continued their record rise in June, driven by the shortages and dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.
