Sri Lanka Live Updates: Pressure for President to Resign Grows After Massive Protests

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka agreed to step down after what appeared to be one of the largest protests yet, following months of demonstrations fueled by the nation’s economic crisis.CreditCredit…Chamila Karunarathne/EPA, via Shutterstock

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose family has dominated politics in Sri Lanka for much of the past two decades, has agreed to resign after months of protests accusing him of running the island nation’s economy into the ground through corruption and mismanagement, the speaker of the country’s parliament said on Saturday.

Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the parliamentary speaker and an ally of the president, announced the development at the end of a chaotic day. Protesters entered the president’s residence and office, ​and thousands ​more ​descended on the capital, Colombo, to register their growing fury over his government’s inability to address a crippling economic crisis. As the demonstrations swelled, the country’s political leaders urged Mr. Rajapaksa to step down.

There was no direct confirmation about the potential resignation from Mr. Rajapaksa, who is in hiding and who in the past has remained defiant. Mr. Abeywardena, in a televised statement, said the president had informed him he would resign on July 13, “to ensure a peaceful transition of power.”

By the evening, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office only in May and was also facing demands to resign, said he would step down, saying he had “the safety of all citizens” in mind. Protesters also entered his private home late Saturday and set it ablaze, said Dinouk Colombage, a spokesman for the prime minister, adding that Mr. Wickremesinghe was not at home at the time.

Sri Lanka has run out of foreign-exchange reserves for imports of essential items like fuel and medicine, and the United Nations has warned that more than a quarter of Sri Lanka’s people are at risk of food shortages.

The economic crisis is a major setback for the nation, which is still grappling with the legacy of a bloody three-decade civil war. That conflict, between the government and insurgents who had taken up the cause of discrimination against the ethnic minority Tamils, ended in 2009. But many of its underlying causes have remained, with the Rajapaksa family continuing to cater to the majority Buddhist Sinhalese.

The country’s downward spiral has played out as high energy prices and food inflation have afflicted much of the world. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the sanctions that followed, have sent energy prices flying, while global food supply chains are increasingly dwindling under stress and demand.

The turmoil in Sri Lanka has already begun to reshape the geopolitical landscape of the region, where the island nation of 22 million has long been viewed as a strategic prize, with both China and India — longtime rivals — jostling for influence.

On Saturday, at least 42 people were injured in clashes with security forces in the city, health officials said, after the police used tear gas and water cannons against protesters and fired shots into the air to try to disperse them.

A Sri Lankan television station said four of its journalists were attacked by security forces outside the residence of Mr. Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, on Saturday evening.

Local news media showed footage of protesters breaching parts of the presidential residence as well as his secretariat, a separate building that houses his office.

Videos on social media showed protesters jumping into the pool in Mr. Rajapaksa’s residence, resting in bedrooms, and frying snacks in the presidential kitchen.

“I came here today to send the president home,” said Wasantha Kiruwaththuduwa, 50, who had walked 10 miles to join the protest. “Now the president must resign. If he wants peace to prevail, he must step down.”

Speculation about the whereabouts of Mr. Rajapaksa continued to intensify into the evening, but his location remained unclear. Officials at the Defense Ministry and in the army did not immediately respond to questions about Mr. Rajapaksa’s location.

Karan Deep Singh contributed reporting.

— Skandha Gunasekara and Mujib Mashal

Sri Lanka’s government has asked Russia for help to import fuel into the country.Credit…Atul Loke for The New York Times

One of the biggest reasons Sri Lankan residents took to the streets on Saturday is the country’s desperate need for fuel and other energy supplies. The South Asian nation has run out of foreign currency to pay for fuel, bringing its economy grinding to a halt.

The acute fuel shortages have meant that food and medicines can’t be transported. Fresh produce from farms can’t make it to cities. People can’t travel in cars, buses or trains. The government has even asked airlines to make sure they’re carrying enough fuel for their return flights because it can no longer provide jet fuel.

“People are very angry because once fuel is not available, they can’t do anything,” said W. A. Wijewardena, an economist and a former deputy governor for Sri Lanka’s central bank.

The situation is so bad that Sri Lanka’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has sought the help of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. On Wednesday, Mr. Rajapaksa said on Twitter that he had spoken to Mr. Putin by phone to ask him for “credit support” to import fuel in the country.

Mr. Rajapaksa’s decision to request help from Russia shows Sri Lanka’s limited options at a time when oil and gas prices have skyrocketed because of the war in Ukraine, experts say. Even the country’s closest ally, India, has refused to provide more fuel supplies unless Sri Lanka pays for it in advance. Since January, India has provided about $3.5 billion in food, fuel and medicines to the country.

Mr. Wijewardena said that in the days to come, Sri Lankans would have to sacrifice modern comforts. “We will have to walk because we cannot use our cars anymore,” he said.

“The liquid has overtaken the entirety of our modern economy.”

Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2019.Credit…Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press

The Rajapaksa family has dominated Sri Lanka’s politics for much of the past two decades, and in recent years, it had increasingly ran the island nation’s government as a family business.

D.A. Rajapaksa, the family patriarch, was a lawmaker in the 1950s and ’60s. But it was Mahinda Rajapaksa, his son, who helped cement the family’s ascent to prominence, rising to become prime minister and then a two-term presidency from 2005 to 2015.

During his time as president, Mahinda Rajapaksa ended the country’s three-decade civil war by quashing the Tamil Tigers’ insurgency through brutal military force, in a campaign that led to accusations of widespread human rights abuses. His brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa served as his powerful defense secretary.

The Rajapaksas were briefly out of the government after losing in the 2015 elections, but they returned to power with Gotabaya Rajapaksa as their presidential candidate in 2019.

He won a resounding victory, in an election campaign that mixed nationalist appeals to the Buddhist Sinhalese, the majority ethnic group in Sri Lanka, and portrayals of him as the strongman the country needed after the deadly terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday just months before the elections.

Soon after, he brought his elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, back to the government as prime minister and handed key positions to several other members of the family. As the country’s economy appeared to be headed for a crash, he made his brother Basil Rajapaksa the minister of finance last July.

In the face of intensifying protests, President Rajapaksa forced the family members in April to give up their seats in the government.

Officials close to him have said he saw completing his full term as a matter of honor. But opposition members and critics have said the president has also been trying to buy time and ensure the protection of the larger Rajapaksa dynasty.