SRI LANKA: PARLIAMENT WILL ELECT A NEW PRESIDENT ON JULY 20

Mon 11 July 2022:

The parliament of Sri Lanka will reconvene on July 15, and a new president will be elected on July 20, according to the parliamentary speaker, as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa decides to quit on Wednesday under a terrible economic crisis.

Following continued protests that call for his resignation due to his inability to control the economic crisis on the Indian Ocean island, President Rajapaksa is scheduled to announce his resignation on July 13, clearing the way for an interim administration.

“Nominations for the next president will be presented to parliament on 19 July. On 20 July parliament will vote to elect a new president,” Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said in a statement.

“During the party leaders’ meeting held today, it was agreed that this was essential to ensure a new all-party government is in place in accordance with the Constitution and to take forward essential services.”

On July 9, hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters attacked Rajapaksa’s official residence and the presidential secretariat, occupying the structures while calling for his resignation in an unprecedented display of the power of the people.

They also took control of Temple Trees, the prime minister’s official residence.

Sri Lanka has been reeling under a balance of payment crisis and since March has failed to service its debt, forcing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to declare the country bankrupt on July 7.

Among the key demands of protesters is the immediate resignation of ministers, state ministers, and top heads of public institutions, a short-term relief program to restore normalcy, a new tax regime, promulgation of a new constitution that reflects the aspirations of the people, abolition of the executive presidency, wide democratic reforms and measures to recover alleged stolen assets.

Rajapaksa was elected with an unprecedented mandate to ensure national security and to move the island towards a path to prosperity though his two-year rule is now dubbed the weakest since political independence in 1948.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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