Sri Lankans hit the streets in celebration as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigns

Music, dancing and joyous revelry was seen on the streets of Colombo on Thursday night as Sri Lankans celebrated the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, hours after he fled to Singapore following mass protests over an economic meltdown.

Protesters defied the city-wide curfew and set off firecrackers, shouted slogans and danced ecstatically at the Gota Go Gama protest site, named mockingly after Rajapaksa’s first name. Others chanted into a microphone that they wanted better governance.

Protest organisers handed back the president and prime minister’s residences, which they had stormed last week and since occupied, to the government on Thursday evening after news of Rajapaksa’s resignation came in.
After stealing away to the Maldives in the middle of the night on Tuesday and then refusing to step down, Rajapaksa finally submitted his resignation by email late on Thursday. It will become official on Friday, once the document had been legally verified, the speaker’s spokesperson said.

However, the island nation’s woes are far from over. Rajapaksa’s decision on Wednesday to make his ally Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the acting president triggered more protests, with demonstrators storming parliament and the premier’s office demanding that he quit too.

Protesters have blamed Rajapaksa and his allies for the economic calamity that has triggered widespread shortages of food, fuel and other necessities. Sri Lanka had begun preliminary discussions with the International Monetary Fund about a potential bailout loan, but these have been interrupted by the latest political chaos.

With Gotabaya stepping aside after a drawn out stand-off, Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker will convene the legislative body and its 225 members will vote to elect a new president on July 20.