Sri Lanka Crisis: Protestors claim to have recovered 17.85 million rupees inside President’s residence

According to a media report on Sunday, the anti-government protestors in Sri Lanka who broke into embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence claim to have found 17.85 million Sri Lankan Rupees inside his mansion.

A video of the demonstrators counting the cash notes discovered has gone viral on social media. The confiscated funds were allegedly handed over to the local police.

Hundreds of anti-government protestors stormed Rajapaksa’s mansion in central Colombo’s high-security Fort district on Saturday, smashing down barricades and demanding his resignation in the midst of the island nation’s worst economic crisis in recent memory. Another group of protesters entered the private residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and set it on fire.

The President’s whereabouts remain unknown. Since the demonstrators invaded the capital, his only communication has been with Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, who stated late Saturday night that the President would resign on Wednesday.

President Rajapaksa informed the Speaker about this decision to quit after Mr. Abeywardena wrote to him seeking his resignation following the all-party meeting of leaders held Saturday evening.

The Speaker would become the acting President in the absence of both the President and the Prime Minister. Later, an election among MPs must happen to elect a new President. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has also offered to resign.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned in May in the face of widespread anti-government protests.

Many in Sri Lanka praised the Rajapaksa brothers, Mahinda and Gotabaya, as heroes for winning the civil war against the LTTE, but they are now blamed for the country’s worst economic crisis.

The likely departure of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday, as well as the resignation of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in May, represents a spectacular fall from grace for a strong family that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for more than a decade.

Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is in the grip of historic economic instability, the worst in seven decades, plagued by an acute lack of foreign cash, leaving it unable to pay for essential imports of petroleum and other necessities.

With an extreme foreign currency crisis resulting in foreign debt default, the country stated in April that it is postponing roughly USD 7 billion in foreign debt repayment due this year, out of approximately USD 25 billion due until 2026. The entire foreign debt of Sri Lanka is USD 51 billion.