Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday officially conveyed to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that he would resign on July 13 as previously announced, the prime minister's office said. Rajapaksa said he will resign on Wednesday after protesters on Saturday stormed his official residence, calling for him to step down over his handling of the country's dire economic crisis.
Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena had asked President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe to resign immediately to make way for an all-party government after the country witnessed its biggest protest yet amid an unprecedented economic crisis. In a statement Saturday night, Wickremesinghe, who has expressed his willingness to resign, said this country is gripped with fuel and food shortages.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is under the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, crippled by an acute shortage of foreign exchange that has left it struggling to pay for essential imports of fuel, and other essentials.
The country, with an acute foreign currency crisis that resulted in foreign debt default, had announced in April that it is suspending nearly $7 billion foreign debt repayment due for this year out of about $25 billion due through 2026. Sri Lanka's total foreign debt stands at $51 billion.
