Sri Lanka president Rajapaksa resignation accepted: Speaker

• Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation has been accepted by parliament.
• He had fled the country earlier this week and was informed of his decision from Singapore.
• His resignation follows months of protests over what many deemed to be his mismanagement of the economy.

COLOMBO: The resignation of Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been accepted, the crisis-stricken nation’s house speaker declared on Friday, after the president fled the country earlier this week and was informed of his decision from Singapore.

Rajapaksa, formerly nicknamed “The Terminator” for his merciless suppression of Tamil rebels, has become the first Sri Lankan head of state to retire since the country elected an executive presidency in 1978.

He sent in his resignation from Singapore after flying to the city-state from the Maldives, where he first evacuated when demonstrators overran his palace at the weekend.

With effect from Thursday, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana told reporters, “Gotabaya has legally resigned.” The resignation has been accepted.

According to Sri Lanka’s constitution, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose resignation is also requested by demonstrators, will serve as acting president until parliament elects an MP to succeed Mr Rajapaksa for the remainder of his term.

Mr Abeywardana told reporters at his residence that the assembly would be convened on Saturday and that he intended to complete the election process “within seven days.”

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Mr Rajapaksa’s resignation followed months of protests over what many deemed to be his mismanagement of the island nation’s economy, resulting in significant suffering for its 22 million inhabitants.

Late Thursday night, a small group of people gathered on a seaside boulevard where the protest movement that got rid of him was based to celebrate his resignation.

Many veterans of the protest movement were fatigued from surviving tear gas barrages and difficult encounters with police forces in the preceding days, so just a few hundred people were present to honour the occasion.

Activist Vraie Balthaazar told AFP, “I certainly feel, and I believe the crowd here certainly feels, extremely pleased about it.”

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