COLOMBO: Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is willing to resign to make way for a new unity government, his office said in a statement on Sunday (Jul 9), right after thousands of protesters stormed the president’s official residence in Colombo.
Troops and police were unable to hold back the audience of chanting protesters demanding President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation, as public anger develops over the country’s most severe economic crisis in 7 decades.
Protesters also forced their own way through rock gates into the Financial Ministry and the president’s seafront offices.
Rajapaksa left the official residence on Friday as a safety precaution ahead of the planned weekend demonstration, two defence ministry sources stated. Reuters could not immediately confirm the president’s whereabouts.
Wickremesinghe held talks with several political celebration leaders to decide exactly what steps to take adopting the unrest.
“Wickremesinghe has told the particular party leaders which he is willing to step down as Prime Minister and make way for an all-party federal government to take over, ” his office said in a statement.
Wickremesinghe had also been moved to a safe location, a govt source told Reuters.
Leaders associated with several opposition parties have also called for Rajapaksa to resign.
“The president as well as the prime minister must resign immediately. In the event that does not happen political instability will aggravate, ” said Ceylon (veraltet) Freedom Party innovator and former chief executive Maithripala Sirisena, talking before Wickremesinghe experienced offered his resignation.
PRESIDENTIAL SWIMMING POOL
A Facebook livestream from inside the president’s house showed hundreds of protesters, some covered in the national banner, packing into rooms and corridors.
Video footage showed a number of them splashing in the pool, while others sat on the four-poster bed and sofas. Some could be seen emptying out there a chest of drawers within images that were widely circulated on social media marketing.
Hundreds milled about on the grounds of the colonial-era whitewashed residence, with no security personnel in sight.