Maldives
\nSri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has declared a state of emergency in his role as the acting president, after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on Wednesday, leading to more protests amid an economic crisis.
\n\u201cThe prime minister as acting president has declared a state of emergency (countrywide) and imposed a curfew in the western province,\u201d Wickremesinghe\u2019s media secretary, Dinouk Colombage, told Reuters.
\nThe curfew comes into effect immediately.
\nAs news of the president\u2019s flight spread, thousands of people gathered at the main protest site in Colombo chanting \u201cGota thief, Gota thief\u201d, referring to him by a nickname.
\nHundreds of others stormed the prime minister\u2019s office, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
\nThe president\u2019s flight brings an end to the rule of the powerful Rajapaksa clan that has dominated politics in the South Asian country for the last two decades.
\nProtests against the economic crisis have simmered for months and came to a head last weekend when hundreds of thousands of people took over key government buildings in Colombo, blaming the Rajapaksas and their allies for runaway inflation, corruption and a severe lack of fuel and medicines.
\nGovernment sources and aides said the president\u2019s brothers, former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, were still in Sri Lanka.
\nGotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards left the main international airport near Colombo aboard a Sri Lankan Air Force plane early on Wednesday, the air force said in a statement.
\nA government source and a person close to Rajapaksa said he was in Male, the capital of the Maldives. The president would most likely proceed to another Asian country from there, the government source said.
\nRajapaksa was due to step down as president on Wednesday to make way for a unity government after protesters stormed his and the prime minister\u2019s official residences.
\nMahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the speaker of Sri Lanka\u2019s parliament, told Reuters partner ANI he was yet to receive any communication from Rajapaksa. A source in the ruling party said the president would send in a letter of resignation later on Wednesday.
\nThat would make Wickremesinghe the acting president, although he has also offered to resign. If he does, the speaker will be the acting president until a new president is elected, as per the constitution.
\nProtest leaders, however, say the prime minister is allied to the Rajapaksas and have warned of a \u201cdecisive fight\u201d if he does not resign by Wednesday afternoon.
\n\u201cIf we don\u2019t hear of the resignation of the president and the prime minister by the evening, we may have to gather back and take over parliament or another government building,\u201d said Buddhi Prabodha Karunaratne, one of the organisers of recent protests.
\n\u201cWe are strongly against the Gota-Ranil government. Both have to go.\u201d
\nAmid the economic and political chaos, Sri Lanka\u2019s sovereign bond prices hit fresh record lows on Wednesday.
\nThe US Embassy in Colombo, which is in the central district of the city, said it was cancelling consular services for the afternoon and for Thursday as a precautionary measure.
\nVictim of pandemic
\nThe island nation\u2019s tourism-dependent economy was hammered first by the Covid-19 pandemic and then suffered from a fall in remittances from overseas Sri Lankans. A ban on chemical fertilisers hit output although the ban was later reversed.
\nThe Rajapaksas implemented populist tax cuts in 2019 that affected government finances while shrinking foreign reserves curtailed imports of fuel, food and medicines.
\nPetrol has been severely rationed and long lines have formed in front of shops selling cooking gas. Headline inflation hit 54.6 per cent last month and the central bank has warned that it could rise to 70pc in coming months.
\nMahinda Rajapaksa, the president\u2019s elder brother, 2[resigned] as the prime minister in May after protests against the family turned violent.
\nHe remained in hiding at a military base in the east of the country for some days before returning to Colombo.
\nIn May, the Rajapaksa government-appointed Mohammed Nasheed, the speaker of the Maldives parliament and a former president, to help coordinate foreign assistance for crisis-hit Sri Lanka.
\nThe same month, Nasheed publicly denied allegations that he was helping Mahinda Rajapaksa secure safe haven in the Maldives.
\nMedia reports in the Maldives said the Sri Lankan president had arrived in the country early on Wednesday although Reuters was unable to independently verify this.
\nA Maldives government spokesman did not respond to Reuters\u2019 request for comment.
\nOn Tuesday, Sri Lankan immigration officials 4[prevented] Basil Rajapaksa from flying out of the country.
\nIt was not clear where Basil Rajapaksa, who also holds US citizenship, was trying to go. He resigned as finance minister in early April amid heavy street protests and quit his seat in parliament in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maldives Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has declared a state of emergency in his role as the acting president, after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on Wednesday, leading to more protests amid an economic crisis. \u201cThe prime minister as acting president has declared a state of emergency (countrywide) and imposed a curfew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-271028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n