By Neelam Rahim

Following months of economic, political and social turbulence in Sri Lanka, 1000s of Sri Lankans descended on Colombo on Saturday, demanding the resignation of both the President and the Prime Minister. The President has been blamed for the country’s economic mismanagement, which has caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine for months. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also said he would step down following Saturday’s protest, in which his private residence was set on fire.

Radio Islam discusses with Amnesty International South Asia’s regional Thyagi Ruwanpathiran.

Thyagi says, “the President’s Office, which is the secretariat that was occupied, as well as his official residence, and then also the Prime Minister’s official residence, so all three of them are state-building, those three are now occupied, they all sit along the same road, few kilometres apart. But the Prime Minister’s residence was set fire on Saturday night.”

Been to the President’s residence on Saturday, and the Presidential Secretariat Thyagi tells Radio Islam that protestors are outside.

“So I’ve been to the president’s residence on Saturday, and yesterday, I also went to the presidential secretariat. Protesters are outside and it’s not just protesters. Crowds of families proactive, using security go inside because they’ve never had access to the buildings in this way. Their main demand, at least on the side of the protest, is that the president resigns, or another sub, which is the Prime Minister’s resignation, and that’s the overall demand. Beyond that, different factions for different things. Some are asked for elections, asking for all 25 members of parliament to go home. Some are asking for the objective presidency to be abolished. There are many calls. The common call so far is for the President to resign,” says Thayagi.

Thayagi further mentions, “The key opposition party is having discussions right now. But the fact remains that the parliament and the numbers in parliament are still stacked against the majority party that holds power.”

For more on this, listen to Radio Islam’s podcast below.