COLOMBO, Sri Lanka –
An aide to the speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had emailed his resignation.
Indunil Yapa said that the speaker will make an official announcement on Friday.
THIS IS A LAST MINUTE UPDATE. The previous AP story follows below.
Sri Lankan protesters began to withdraw from government buildings they seized and military troops tightened security at Parliament on Thursday, establishing a tenuous calm in a country in economic crisis and political limbo.
Embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled a day earlier under pressure from protesters angry over the island’s economic collapse. But he didn’t resign as he promised, further infuriating the crowd by making his prime minister interim leader.
Protesters want both the men out and a unity government in to address an economic calamity that has caused widespread shortages of food, fuel and other necessities. But with a fractured opposition and confusion over who was in charge, a solution seemed no closer after Rajapaksa’s departure. Adding to the confusion, the president left the Maldives for Singapore on Thursday, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Protesters accuse Rajapaksa and his powerful in-laws of siphoning money from government coffers for years and his administration of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy. The family has denied allegations of corruption, but Rajapaksa acknowledged that some of his policies contributed to the collapse.
Months of protests reached a frantic peak over the weekend when demonstrators stormed the home and office of the president and the official residence of the prime minister. On Wednesday they seized the office of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
They initially promised to keep these places until a new government is established, but the movement appeared to change tack on Thursday.
Protest leader Devinda Kodagode told The Associated Press they planned to vacate official buildings after the speaker of parliament said he was exploring legal options for the country since Rajapaksa left without handing in his resignation letter as promised.
The protesters withdrew from the presidential residence, some moving a red carpet that had been put back in place when they left. Some still milled around outside the president’s office.
“We are not ready to take power in the building,” said Sanka Jayasekar, a 20-year-old protester leaving the president’s residence. “We just want to kick out (the) Rajapaksa regime. Already Gota Rajapaksa (has) left the country, so he has no power in Sri Lanka, so we have taken our power back again, that’s why we are leaving the building.”
Other protesters posted videos on social media pleading with their compatriots not to storm Parliament, following clashes outside the building on Wednesday.
Troops in green military uniforms and camouflage vests arrived Thursday in armored vehicles to reinforce the barricades around the Legislature.
Meanwhile, the government announced another curfew in the capital Colombo and its suburbs in the afternoon until 5 am on Friday. It’s unclear what effect a curfew would have: some ignored an earlier one, but many others rarely leave their homes due to fuel shortages.
Rajapaksa and his wife fled Sri Lanka early Wednesday for the Maldives, slipping into the night aboard an air force plane. On Thursday he headed to Singapore, according to the Maldives official.
It was not immediately clear what Rajapaksa’s ultimate fate would be. The official initially indicated that he planned to travel to Saudi Arabia, but was later only able to confirm his first stop in Singapore, where the plane believed to be carrying him landed on Thursday night. Since Sri Lankan presidents are protected from arrest while in power, it is likely that Rajapaksa wanted to plan his departure while he still had constitutional immunity and access to a military aircraft.
On Wednesday, protesters undeterred by multiple rounds of tear gas scaled the walls to enter the Prime Minister’s Office as the crowd outside cheered in support and hurled water bottles at them. Protesters took turns posing at his desk or stood on a rooftop waving the Sri Lankan flag.
Amid the growing chaos, Wickremesinghe’s office imposed a state of emergency giving broader powers to the army and police. Defense leaders have called for calm and cooperation with security forces, comments that have rankled some lawmakers who insist civilian leaders would be the ones to find a solution.
Assuming Rajapaksa resigns as promised, Sri Lankan lawmakers have agreed to choose a new president from their ranks on July 20, who will serve out the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. That person could potentially name a new prime minister. , who then have to be approved by Parliament.
The political impasse threatens to worsen the bankrupt nation’s economic collapse, as the absence of an alternative government could delay a long-awaited International Monetary Fund bailout. Meanwhile, the country relies on help from India and China.
The shortage of basic necessities has sown desperation among the 22 million inhabitants of Sri Lanka. The country’s rapid decline was all the more shocking because, prior to the recent crisis, the economy had been expanding, with a comfortable and growing middle class.
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Associated Press writer Bharatha Mallawarachi contributed to this report.