Oyogist has learned that Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has resigned Monday after dozens of people were hospitalised when his supporters armed with sticks and clubs attacked protestors.
The country has suffered months of blackouts and dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines in its worst economic crisis since independence, sparking weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government demonstrations.
Rajapaksa’s spokesman Rohan Weliwita said the 76-year-old sent his letter of resignation to his younger brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, clearing the way for a “new unity government”.
“I am resigning with immediate effect so that you will be able to appoint an all-party government to guide the country out of the current economic crisis,” the prime minister said in the letter, seen by AFP.
The country’s largest opposition party had said before the clashes that it would not join any government helmed by a member of the Rajapaksa clan.
The resignation of the prime minister automatically means the cabinet stands dissolved.
On Monday the biggest clashes since the start of the crisis erupted in Colombo when supporters of the Rajapaksa family went on the rampage, AFP reporters at the scene said.
