Colombo 2 Sep : Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former Sri Lankan President who fled the country following protesters against his government sacked his official residence on the 13th of July and will return to the nation in crisis on Saturday.After months of protests on the streets over the country’s worst economic crisis that caused the severe shortage of essential necessities such as food, fuel, cooking gas and medicine, Rajapaska, who came to the throne with an overwhelming Sinhala Buddhist majority votes in November 2019 was forced to resign two and a half years prior to the end of his term.
Rajapaksa secretly fled to Maldives initially with the assistance of the former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed and then to Singapore.
In the wake of the intervention of the Sri Lankan government, Rajapaksa who is a diplomat flew to Thailand where he was granted an extended stay of 90 days.
Rajapaksa’s first attempt to leave for the US where his son lives with his family, failed when Washington did not grant the visa.
A former dual citizen, Rajapaksa needed to give up his US citizenship in order to be able to participate in the presidential election in 2019.
“The President shouldn’t leave the country, however he could have quit the presidency while residing in Sri Lanka,” Jagath Kumara, a member of Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party spoke to reporters on Friday, while applauding the return of the former leader.
“He is an American citizen of this country and no one is able to put the law into the hands of a citizen,” the MP said when he was asked about the security of the former President.
In the current presidency, President Ranil Wickremesinghe had earlier stated that it was not safe for Rajapaksa return to the country.
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