Sri Lankan anti-government protesters held a vigil on Saturday night in memory of those who lost their lives during the 100 days of protests that led to the flight of the country’s president.
Although the first protests began at the end of March, when the island suffered daily power cuts that lasted more than thirteen hours, it was not until April 9 that thousands of people began to occupy the Galle Face park, in front of the secretariat of the presidential elections in Colombo. , demanding the resignation of the head of state, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Tents, portable toilets and all kinds of equipment were set up in the park, which became the epicenter of the protesters’ struggle against government power.
One hundred days later, and despite the fact that the protests have already achieved their main objective, to provoke the resignation of Rajapaksa, the place continues to attract thousands of protesters daily who now yearn for the resignation of the interim president, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
“We said (…) that we would expel Gotabaya Rajapaksa before the 100th day. We got it. We earned a lot during those 100 days. We will continue our fight,” Manodhya Jayaratne, one of the protesters, told the EFE news agency.
“Now we are saying that we are going to get rid of Ranil before day 150,” added Jayaratne.
The path to achieve the resignation of the President was remarkably peaceful, although the island also experienced some particularly violent days during those hundred days.
Since the origin of the protests, at least nine people have died. Eight of these deaths occurred on May 9, when a clash between supporters and opponents of the government unleashed conflicts throughout the country, which also resulted in more than 200 injuries.
Two months later, on July 9, hundreds of protesters stormed the Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe official residences, forcing the president to flee the country to the Maldives and announce his resignation in Singapore on Friday.
Wickremesinghe, who had also declared his intention to resign as prime minister, abandoned this possibility after being appointed by Rajapaksa as interim president.
Now, in the role of caretaker president until the election of a new head of state on July 20, a position to be held by an MP chosen by parliament to serve Rajapaksa’s term, Wickremesinghe has become the focus of mass protests.
The current political crisis in Sri Lanka is a consequence of the economic disaster that the country is experiencing, which is currently experiencing the worst situation in its history since independence from the British Empire in 1948.
Source: Observadora
