Sri Lanka's presidential secretariat on Monday said any communication from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be released only through the Speaker of Parliament, hours after the office of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced that the embattled president will resign on Wednesday, signalling a possible rift between the two top leaders of the bankrupt island nation.
Rajapaksa is yet to resign formally and his whereabouts is also not yet known. However, the presidential secretariat has been issuing the President’s statement even after he had fled the official residence when thousands of people stormed it on Saturday.
“All messages issued by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be released by the Speaker after information is given to him by the President,” the presidential secretariat said in a statement quoted by Economy Next newspaper.
“Therefore, kindly request that only the announcements issued by the Speaker be considered as official announcements issued by the President,” it said.
The statement came hours after the Prime Minister's office announced that President Rajapaksa has officially conveyed to Prime Minister Wickremesinghe that he will resign on July 13 as previously announced.
However, the presidential secretariat did not confirm if Rajapaksa confirmed his resignation to Wickremesinghe and it was not immediately clear why the prime minister’s office issued a statement, the report said.
Quoting political sources close to both Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe, the Economy Next report said that there had been an “uneasy peace” between both the leaders in the past one month.
President Rajapaksa appointed Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister in May after his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced to resign amidst growing pressure on the government for the mismanagement of the economy.
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