Sri Lankan Parliament meets to announce president's vacancy post Gotabaya's registration

• Integrity Education, Delhi
• 17, Jul 2022

The Sri Lankan Parliament met in a brief session on Saturday to announce a vacancy in the presidency following the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. According to the local media reports the session lasted for 13 minutes and Dhammika Dassanayake, Secretary General of Parliament, announced the vacancy for the post of president.

Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera said, Sri Lanka, has received the first of three fuel shipments today. These are the first shipments to reach the country in about three weeks. Ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation letter was also read out at a special session of the Parliament today. In his letter, Rajapaksa said he took all possible steps to avert the Sri Lankan crisis.

Later in the day, India’s High Commissioner Gopal Baglay called on Sri Lanka’s Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena and assured him that India will continue to support democracy, stability and economic recovery in the country.

On Friday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed as the interim President.  Wickremesinghe said he would work to strengthen Parliament's powers via constitutional adjustments. The new president is expected to be elected on July 20 and will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024.

Celebrations broke out across Sri Lanka after Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned as President on Thursday. Rajapaksa and his cabinet were blamed for the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, against which citizens have been protesting for months.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's top court on Friday barred former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa from leaving the country without permission until July 28.

Source: News on Air