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Protests in Sri Lanka have entered their 100th day, toppling a president as dilemmas loom over a successor as the country’s economic crisis continues.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the presidential palace shortly before protesters descended on it and resigned on Thursday.
His mismanagement has been called the main cause of the financial crisis, which has left 22 million people without bread, oil or medicine.
It all began as a two-day protest on April 9, when tens of thousands of people set up camp in front of Rajapaksa’s office, a crowd so much larger than organizers had expected that they decided to stay put. And then more and more people joined.
Milton Pereira, a 74-year-old shows the difficulties he and his family are going through, while his physique shows clear signs of lack of food.
“We can only buy 250 grams of fish and in many cases only one fish falls. We have to cut it into many small pieces so that the whole family can eat. Because we don’t have much money, we often give peas to the little ones, while we adults only eat greens”.
Mohamaid Fazal, owner of a grocery store, shares the dissatisfaction of his customers
“People come to buy food, but they are not satisfied because they have no money. Prices have increased. The main reason is that there is no way to transport these products because there is no oil. That’s why the prices have increased“.
Under Sri Lanka’s constitution, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was automatically installed as interim president after Rajapaksa’s resignation.
He is now the front-runner to succeed her permanently after a parliamentary vote next week.
But the veteran politician is scorned by protesters as an ally of the Rajapaksa clan, four brothers who have dominated the island’s politics for years.
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