- Colombo Telegraph
VIVA – Sri Lanka is in chaos caused by the country's economic collapse and a wave of protests by tens of thousands of angry demonstration. Through this, the President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa agreed to resign on July 13.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the last of the six most influential family members and still holds power in the country. On Saturday, July 9, 2022, a large crowd took to the streets in the capital Colombo, they broke into Rajapaksa's official residence and occupied his office.
Not only that, this demonstration also set fire to the prime minister's house.
Warga Sri Lanka turun ke jalan menuntut presiden Gotabaya Rajapaksa mengundurkan diri.
- AP Photo/Amitha Thennakoon.
As quoted from the AP on Monday, July 11, 2022, the peak of mass protests on Saturday caused the Sri Lanka President to step down. Rajapaksa whose whereabouts are unknown.
As information, on November 16, 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President of Sri Lanka by presidential election. His oath of office was taken at the sacred Ruvanvaliseya Stupa area in Anuradhapura on November 18, 2019.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa is a non-career politician and the first former officer to become president. He won the presidential election with 52.2 percent of the vote.
For decades, the powerful landowner Gotabaya Rajapaksa family had dominated local politics in the country's southern rural districts, before Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected president in 2005.
Mahinda managed to appeal to the majority Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist sentiment on the island. He led Sri Lanka to victories over ethnic Tamil rebels in 2009, ending a brutal 26-year civil war that has divided the country.
Mahinda remained in office until 2015, when he lost to the opposition led by his former aide.
Mahinda dan Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
- Asia Times
But the family revive in 2019, when Gotabaya won the presidential election on a promise to restore security after a terrorist suicide bombing on Easter Sunday that killed 290 people.
He vowed to restore the strong nationalism that had made his family popular among the Buddhist majority, and to lead the country out of an economic slump with a message of stability and development.
Instead, he made several big mistakes that delivered an unprecedented crisis. When tourism plummeted after the bombings and foreign loans on controversial development projects needed to be repaid, Mahinda disobeyed economic advisers.
Pengunjuk rasa menyerbu Istana Presiden Sri Lanka
- Twitter @iam_jniest
He pushed for the biggest tax cut in the country's history. It was meant to spur spending, but critics warned it would slash government finances.
Lack of food, cooking gas, fuel and medicine have sparked public anger over what many see as the mismanagement, corruption and nepotism of the Rajapaksa government.
The family split began in April 2022, when growing protests forced three of Rajapaksa's relatives, including the Minister of Finance, to quit their Cabinet posts and another to leave his ministerial job in May 2022.
Government supporters attacked protesters in a wave of violence that killed nine people. The demonstration’s anger turned to Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was pressured to step down as Prime Minister (PM) and take refuge in a heavily fortified naval base.
But Gotabaya refused to leave, and people in the streets of the capital shout "Gota Go Home!".
