Jul 9, 2022 - World

Sri Lanka president to resign amid calls to step down

Axios

Picture of Gotabaya Rajapaksa — Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Photo: Andy Buchanan-Pool/Getty Images

Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will resign from his position on Wednesday, AP reports.

Driving the news: It comes just hours after the country's prime minister agreed to resign, after protests that had been ongoing for months over Sri Lanka's economic crisis resulted in the presidential palace and the prime minister's house being broken into.

State of play: Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the speaker of Sri Lanka’s Parliament, said on national television that he had informed Rajapaksa that the parliamentary party leaders were requesting that he leave office, and the president agreed.

Rajapaksa will remain in power until Wednesday to ensure a "smooth transfer of power," AP writes.

The big picture: Sri Lanka's government lacks sufficient foreign reserves to pay for fuel and other key imports, Axios' Dave Lawler reports.

Economic mismanagement, the COVID pandemic and unaffordable tax cuts passed in 2019 have helped plunge the country into the economic crisis.
The country is facing major food and medicine shortages, which doctors in the country said in May could lead to deaths, Al Jazeera reports.

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Sri Lanka president to resign amid calls to step down

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