Sri Lanka, 2022 — popular revolt

Event Summary

On 9 July 2022 hundreds of thousands of protesters stormed the presidential palace in Colombo, forcing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka to flee and then resign, the climax of a mass popular uprising against a catastrophic economic collapse. Sri Lanka had run out of foreign currency to pay for imports, leaving the island of 22 million without adequate fuel, cooking gas, food, and medicine, and enduring long blackouts and runaway inflation in its worst crisis since independence. Anger focused on the Rajapaksa family, which had dominated politics for two decades and was blamed for mismanagement and corruption, in a largely peaceful protest movement known as the Aragalaya, or the struggle.

Over the spring the pressure forced out the president's brothers and other relatives from the cabinet. On 9 July huge crowds converged on Colombo, overwhelmed police and soldiers, and occupied the presidential residence and office, images of people swimming in the president's pool circling the world, and later set fire to the prime minister's private home. Rajapaksa was evacuated before the crowds arrived.

The parliament speaker announced he would resign; his whereabouts kept secret, he fled the country by military jet on 13 July, going to the Maldives and then Singapore, from where he submitted his resignation on 14 July. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe became acting president.