Lagatar24 Desk
Colombo, July 15: The crisis-hit nation’s house speaker declared on Friday that the president’s resignation had been accepted after he left the country earlier this week and informed him from Singapore that he was doing so.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, formerly nicknamed as ‘The Terminator’ for his merciless suppression of Tamil separatists, has officially announced his resignation, becoming the first head of state of Sri Lanka to do so since the country switched to an executive president in 1978.
He flew to Singapore from the Maldives, where he had initially fled when protesters overran his palace at the weekend, and submitted his resignation through email.
“Gotabaya has legally resigned with effect from Thursday. I have accepted the resignation,” speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana told reporters.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will automatically become acting president until parliament can elect an MP to succeed Rajapaksa for the rest of his term, according to the Sri Lanka’s constitution.
“On Saturday, the legislature will be summoned. We hope to complete the election process within seven days,” Abeywardana told reporters.
According to Sri Lanka’s constitution, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose resignation is also sought by demonstrators, will automatically take the presidency until parliament elects a member to succeed Rajapaksa for the remainder of his term.
Abeywardana told reporters that the legislature would be called on Saturday and expressed the expectation that the election would be finished “within seven days.”
After months of protests over what his detractors claimed was his poor management of the island nation’s economy, which caused great suffering for its 22 million residents, Rajapaksa left office.
