MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2022) Sri Lanka will elect a new president on July 20 during a parliament session, the Daily Mirror online newspaper reported on Friday.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed as the acting president after the authorities received Rajapaksa's letter of resignation through Sri Lanka's High Commission in Singapore, where the outgoing leader is right now.
Last weekend, Colombo, Sri Lanka's commercial capital, was rocked by thousand-strong protests, caused by public dissatisfaction with the government's inefficiency in fighting the economic crisis. Following the unrest, Wickremesinghe called an emergency meeting of political party leaders, who demanded that both the prime minister and president resign immediately.
On Wednesday, July 13, Rajapaksa arrived in Maldives after fleeing Sri Lanka. The very next day, he traveled to Singapore. The Singaporean authorities said that the outgoing Sri Lankan leader had not asked for any asylum and had not been granted it.
