By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has fled out of the country to Maldives on a military jet hours before he was due to resign on Wednesday, after days of protest, including his presidential palace and office being taken over by anti-government demonstrators.
After his departure, the office of the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said a state of emergency had been declared as protesters continued to try to storm government offices. A Sri Lankan official said Wickremesinghe had been appointed by Rajapaksa to be acting President.
The Air Force confirmed that Rajapaksa, his wife and two security guards boarded a military aircraft in the early hours of Wednesday morning, after he invoked executive powers to enable his escape.
“Under the provisions of the constitution and on a request by the government, the Sri Lanka air force provided a plane early today to fly the president, his wife and two security officials to the Maldives,” a statement said. They arrived in Malé, the Maldives capital, at 3am.
At the time of the the President’s departure on Wednesday morning, he still had not submitted a letter of resignation.
Protesters, activists and lawyers have called for the President to be prosecuted, along with various Rajapaksa family members, over alleged corruption and human rights abuses.
However, while he is still President, Rajapaksa enjoys immunity from arrest. It is believed he will not officially resign until he reaches his final destination of the United Arab Emirates, which has long been a haven for disgraced leaders.
As news of Rajapaksa’s departure to the Maldives broke on Wednesday morning, protests erupted across Colombo with people demanding he step down immediately.
There was a heavy security presence outside the office of Wickremesinghe, and teargas and water cannon were deployed by police as the crowds gathered to demand the Prime Minister also step down.
Rajapaksa’s escape to the Maldives followed a dramatic 24 hours in which he unsuccessfully tried various means of leaving the country. He was blocked from boarding a commercial flight to Dubai on Monday night after airport staff refused to stamp his passport in the VIP area of the airport. India also refused to give permission for his plane to land on its soil.
The President’s younger brother Basil Rajapaksa, who served as Finance Minister, was also prevented from boarding a flight to Dubai en route to the US, where he is a dual citizen. Basil, too, was reported to have left Sri Lanka on Tuesday night.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was elected in 2019, has been resisting calls for his resignation for months, as Sri Lanka has sunk deeper into a financial crisis for which he is widely blamed.
Rajapaksa and five family members who held senior government posts stand accused of widespread corruption and economic mismanagement which left the country without any foreign currency to import food, fuel and medicines, and pushed inflation to record levels. According to the UN, the island of 22 million people is facing a humanitarian crisis.
Rajapaksa was forced at the weekend to announce his intention to step down from power this week, after hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Colombo and stormed into the presidential palace and offices, as well as the official residence of the prime minister. They have occupied the buildings ever since, refusing to leave until both Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe step down.
According to the constitution, if Rajapaksa resigns on Wednesday, Wickremesinghe will automatically replace him. This would be highly unpopular among anti-government protesters, who believe that Wickremesinghe – who took over as a caretaker Prime Minister two months ago – was responsible for propping up the Rajapaksa regime. Wickremesinghe has agreed to step down when an all-party unity government is in place.
Opposition parties said the unity government had been agreed in principle, though it was not clear who the new Prime Minister would be. If Rajapaksa’s resignation goes ahead as planned, Parliament will reconvene on 15 July and MPs will vote on 20 July to decide the new President.
