Sri Lanka’s president flees for the Maldives as prime minister declares emergency

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has fled Sri Lanka on a military aircraft for the Maldives, according to the country’s air force, leaving behind a deepening economic and political crisis in the island nation on the day he was expected to resign in the face of mass protests.

The 73-year-old leader was forced to offer his resignation on Saturday by a street revolt in which tens of thousands of protesters angered by rising prices and shortages of fuel and food converged on Colombo, the commercial capital, and over-ran the presidential palace.

“On government request and under terms of powers available to the president under the constitution, with full approval from the ministry of defence, the president, his wife and two security officials were provided a Sri Lanka air force plane to depart from Katunayake international airport for the Maldives in the early hours of July 13th,” the air force said on Wednesday morning.

Overnight on Tuesday, Mr Rajapaksa and his younger brother Basil Rajapaksa, a former finance minister, had been stopped by immigration officials from boarding commercial flights. “I can confirm to you that he departed last night,” a senior immigration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Financial Times. “All immigration formalities were fulfilled.”

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The official said Mr Rajapaksa’s brother remained in the country. He added: “We have no power to stop the president from leaving, as media have claimed.”

In an address shortly after 1pm, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker, said Mr Rajapaksa had named Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, as acting president in his place.

Under Sri Lanka’s constitution, the prime minister is next in line to succeed the president if he resigns. However, as of early afternoon on Wednesday Mr Rajapaksa had not formally resigned.

Mr Wickremesinghe is himself a target of protesters’ ire, and previously said he would resign once a new unity government was in place.

In an address to the nation, he said he had ordered Sri Lanka’s military commanders and head of police “to do what is necessary to restore order”, and that the president’s office and other buildings occupied by protesters “must be returned to proper custody”.

“We can’t tear up our constitution. We can’t allow fascists to take over,” Mr Wickremesinghe said. “Some mainstream politicians, too, seem to be supporting these extremists. That is why I declared a nationwide emergency and a curfew.”

Mr Wickremesinghe on Wednesday morning declared a national state of emergency and a curfew in Western Province, the most populous subdivision that includes Colombo.

[ ‘A train wreck in slow motion’: government missteps ignite Sri Lanka street revolt ]

[ Sri Lanka crisis timeline: from galloping inflation to a president’s resignation ]

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters were gathering around the prime minister’s office and calling for him to resign with chants of “Go home Ranil”. The crowds managed to breach the army barriers and stormed into Mr Wickremesinghe’s offices. As the armed forces were overrun, people poured into the corridors and waved flags from the balconies. At the weekend, demonstrators set fire to Mr Wickremesinghe’s house.

Protesters also took over the offices of the Rupavahini state media centre in Colombo. “Until the struggle is over, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini corporation will only telecast programmes of the Jana Aragalaya,” said a protester, referring to the people’s protest movement, before the channel went off air.

Mr Rajapaksa’s downfall marks the end of one of Asia’s most powerful political dynasties, which many Sri Lankans credit with winning a long-running and brutal war against Tamil separatists in the north of the country.

However, they now blame him for borrowing heavily to build China-backed Belt and Road spending projects and for a series of failed economic policies that caused Sri Lanka to default on its debt in May.

Word that Mr Rajapaksa had fled was greeted with jubilation by protesters occupying the palace, who had daubed its walls with graffiti including the slogan “Gota, go home”.

“I am happy that he has left, both as a citizen of this country and as a campaigner,” said Nirmani Liyanage of the Citizens Forum, a civic group that belongs to the Aragalaya (Struggle) movement that has been calling for Rajapaksa’s resignation since April.

She said it was an important development for Aragalaya in its pursuit of “accountability, transparency and participatory democracy” in Sri Lanka.

The president’s flight from Sri Lanka leaves a power vacuum at a time when the country needs to form a new government and secure an International Monetary Fund financing facility. The agreement would unlock financing for emergency loans that would allow it to import essential goods and make headway on talks to restructure its debt.

After Mr Rajapaksa promised to step down, opposition parties began talks on forming a new government, a step needed to secure an IMF programme.

Sri Lanka’s debt pile stands at $51 billion (€51bn), just over half of which is owed to bilateral and multilateral lenders led by China.

According to the UN World Food Programme, more than six million people out of a population of 22 million are “food insecure”, meaning they do not consume sufficient calories to lead a healthy and productive life. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022