Colombo: Sri Lankan Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywarden on Friday accepted the resignation of embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. “Yes resignation has been accepted, legal process will follow…Members will be invited tomorrow (to elect a President),” ANI quoted Yapa Abeywarden as saying. Sri Lanka’s embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Thursday sent his resignation letter through an email to Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardenaon. Speaker’s media secretary Indunil Abeywardena had said that the resignation letter from President Rajapaksa was received through the Sri Lanka High Commission in Singapore. However, the Speaker wanted to see the original signature, he added. The original will be brought to Colombo from Singapore in the next available flight by a diplomatic officer, PTI sources had said on Thursday evening. In an unusual move, Maldivian Majlis (Parliament) Speaker Mohamed Nasheed earlier announced that Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa had resigned. “Sri Lankan President GR has resigned. I hope Sri Lanka can now move forward. I believe the President would not have resigned if he were still in Sri Lanka, and fearful of losing his life. I commend the thoughtful actions of the Govt of Maldives. My best wishes to the people of Sri Lanka,” Nasheed, the former president who had negotiated Rajapaksa’s escape to the Maldives, said in a tweet.
