Sri Lanka declares emergency after president flees to Maldives: Report
Angry protesters want both president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to resign.
Fresh protests erupted in Sri Lanka Wednesday morning after hundreds of angry citizens marched on prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office in Colombo to demand that he also resign.
Protesters have already demanded president Gotabaya Rajapaksa stand down after failing to rescue the country from its worst economic crisis in living memory, and today made a similar demand of the PM, pointing out that the country’s constitution mandates he take over when the president resigns.
“We want the PM to resign because as per our constitution if the President resigns PM becomes the acting President. People want both of them to leave,” a former advisor to the Sri Lanka government told news agency ANI.
“Police took action (against the protesters) by tear gas shelling. Army troops moved in.”
Visuals shared by ANI showed hundreds of protesters massed outside prime minister Wickremesinghe’s office – in scenes very like the storming of president Rajapaksa’s residence in Colombo on Saturday.
The protesters can be heard shouting and booing.
#WATCH Protesters face to face with military personnel deployed outside Sri Lankan prime minister's residence in Colombo
Ranil Wickremesinghe is a failed prime minister, says a protester. pic.twitter.com/6TtfT9wvky
— ANI (@ANI) July 13, 2022
Another video shows protesters coming face-to-face with heavily armed and armoured military personnel stationed outside the prime minister’s home.
Some of the protesters can be heard chanting ‘go, go’ in response to others shouting out the names of the prime minister and president.
-Hindustan Times
