Demonstrators sleep at the Presidential Secretariat after Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena officially announced the resignation of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa who fled to Singapore amid Sri Lanka's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 15, 2022. REUTERSSri Lanka’s ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled overseas this week to escape a popular uprising against his government, has said he took "all possible steps" to avert the economic crisis that has engulfed the island nation. Sri Lanka's parliament met on Saturday to begin the process of electing a new president, as a shipment of fuel arrived to provide some relief to the crisis-hit nation. During the proceedings Dhammika Dasanayake, the secretary general of Sri Lanka’s parliament, formally read out Rajapaksa’s resignation letter, the contents of which have not previously been made public. In his letter Rajapaksa said Sri Lanka’s financial crisis was rooted in years of economic mismanagement that pre-dated his presidency, along with the COVID-19 pandemic that drastically reduced Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals and remittances from foreign workers.
