Italian PM Mario Draghi offers resignation after coalition falls apart - BBC

Sean Gallup/POOL/EPA

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has tendered his resignation after populist coalition partner Five Star withdrew its support in a confidence vote.

The former head of the European Central Bank has led a unity government since February 2021.

In a statement, he said the pact of trust that had sustained the unity government had gone.

However, the president refused to accept his resignation.

President Sergio Mattarella appointed Mr Draghi - a former ECB chief - to lead Italy's post-Covid pandemic recovery and save the country from endemic instability. He has now called on Mr Draghi to address parliament to provide a clear picture of the political situation.

The effect of President Mattarella's intervention is not entirely clear. Mr Draghi is expected to go to parliament next Wednesday and with sufficient backing could remain in office.

The extraordinary developments in Rome capped a day of drama triggered when Five Star leader Giuseppe Conte refused to back the government's €23bn (£19.5bn) package of economic aid for families and businesses, arguing Mr Draghi was not doing enough to tackle the cost of living crisis.

EPA

Even though the government comfortably won Thursday's vote in the Senate with the help of other parties, the man dubbed "Super Mario" had warned repeatedly that without Five Star's support the government could not continue.

Mr Draghi paid a first, hour-long visit to President Mattarella and, after reflecting on his future, issued his statement of resignation.

"Today's votes in Parliament are very significant from a political point of view. The national unity majority that supported this government since its creation no longer exists," he said. After addressing ministers he returned to the Quirinale palace to tender his resignation to the president. Avoiding the cameras, he did not use the main door.

Elections were already due early in 2023 and, if the government does collapse, a vote is likely to take place this autumn. Several parties on the right are keen on early elections, but a period of political uncertainty will jeopardise Italy's efforts to tackle a looming energy crisis and pass next year's budget to secure EU funding.

Right up to the Senate vote, attempts were made to resolve the coalition crisis. Milan's stock market tumbled 3.4% as nervousness spread to investors in the eurozone's third biggest economy.

European Union Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, who is himself a former Italian prime minister, said earlier the EU's executive was watching developments in Rome "with worried astonishment". The head of Italy's industry group Confindustria said Five Star's decision had shown "total irresponsibility".

Five Star was originally the biggest party in the coalition but has seen a string of defections and falling support. Former party leader Luigi di Maio accused it of a cynical plan to bring down the Draghi government to revive its own support, while dragging Italy to economic and social collapse.

Reuters

Parties across the political spectrum have had next year's general election in their sights, especially on the right. Matteo Salvini of the far-right League and Giorgia Meloni of Brothers of Italy are competing for leadership of a potential right-wing coalition.

Ms Meloni called for elections, immediately announcing: "I'm ready to govern." Mr Salvini said a period of political paralysis was unthinkable.

Politicians on the left are less prepared for elections and Democratic Party Secretary Enrico Letta said the focus now had to be on reconstructing a coalition in parliament so that the Draghi government could restart.

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2022-07-14 19:20:29Z
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Extreme weather: From blankets on glaciers to ice creams for pandas, Europe finds new ways to deal with blistering heatwave - Sky News

A relentless heatwave that is blistering Europe has left some of the Alps' oldest glaciers needing blanket cover to protect them from melting.

The Rhone Glacier in Switzerland is just one of the casualties of the extreme temperatures the continent has been experiencing over the past few days.

A spate of wildfires has seen firefighters battling blazes in Portugal, Spain and southern France - as well as in Turkey at the other end of the Mediterranean.

Water-dumping planes have been scrambled to help combat the worst of some of the wildfires.

Tourists have been evacuated from campsites in Gironde, France, where more than 2,700 hectares have been burnt so far, while temperatures are expected to exceed records in Portugal and Spain.

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Madrid Zoo's giant panda Bing Xing enjoyed a watermelon ice lolly provided by keepers to keep him and other animals cool.

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Predatory animals like lions or seals were offered 'lollies' made from beef or fish, depending on their diet. Zoo keepers also sprayed animals with water.

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Image: People grab their pets as they evacuate after a wildfire, in Leiria, Portugal

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In Portugal's southern Algarve region, popular with tourists, authorities blocked access to the Quinta do Lago luxury resort and golf course as thick plumes of smoke rose from an area next to it which had ignited due to high temperatures.

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Frightening fires break out as Portugal's temperatures climb to 46C

And in the central district of Leiria, north of Lisbon, where temperatures soared to 45C (113F), police were forced to block a major motorway due to a similar blaze.

Image: A pharmacy thermometer shows soaring temperatures in Nantes, France

Villagers who had not been evacuated, poured water on roofs of their homes to try to cool them and stop them catching fire.

Image: People cool off at an urban beach in Madrid

Nearly all of mainland Portugal is on red alert for extreme heat conditions.

Image: Helicopters dump water on wildfires on the outskirts of Madrid. Pic: Associated Press

The World Meteorological Organisation has warned "human-caused climate change" is triggering droughts, and a UN report says the number of extreme wildfires is expected to increase 30% within the next 28 years.

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2022-07-13 19:45:35Z
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EU moves to play down tensions over Kaliningrad - Financial Times

The EU has sought to reduce tensions with Moscow over Kaliningrad by indicating it was not seeking to block shipments of sanctioned goods from reaching the Russian territory.

The move follows weeks of talks within the EU over how rigorously to enforce sanctions on Russian products destined for Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.

Lithuania, which controls the only overland rail route linking the exclave to mainland Russia via Belarus, has been carefully checking the shipments, triggering a furious response from Moscow, which accused the EU of imposing a “blockade” on the territory.

The European Commission released guidance on Wednesday confirming that the bloc was not attempting to stop goods transported by rail from travelling across Lithuania to reach Kaliningrad, subject to checks to ensure that trade volumes were in line with historical averages.

However, goods that are subject to EU sanctions, such as steel and cement, would not be allowed to travel by road, it said. Sanctioned military and dual-use goods and technology are fully prohibited regardless of the mode of transport.

Some EU officials have privately criticised the scale and intensity of Lithuania’s checks on Russian trains, fretting that they could create a dangerous stand-off with Russia in a geopolitically sensitive part of Europe.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the EU’s decision was “a display of realism and common sense”, though she added “we still have questions about the content of the document in question”. Russia would “set up thorough monitoring of how the EU’s steps will be carried out in practice”, Zakharova said.

Some diplomats say they did not intend to create significant new barriers to flows of goods between Russia and its Baltic exclave when they endorsed the sanctions this year and that the commission had drafted the rules ambiguously.

“Kaliningrad is a politically sensitive issue, so it was a mistake by the European Commission,” said one EU diplomat.

The commission said the guidance was part of “regular technical exchanges on the practical implementation of EU restrictive measures”.

Lithuanian policymakers have insisted they have correctly implemented EU sanctions against Russia and have avoided unilateral measures, denying there has been any “blockade” of the exclave. In its guidance the commission said checks by the member states’ authorities should be “targeted, proportionate and effective”.

The EU has pushed through six rounds of sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which will affect a growing range of products as each round takes effect. Under Wednesday’s commission guidance, member states are required to look out for unusual trade patterns or flows that might indicate circumvention of sanctions.

The intervention by Brussels came as diplomats began consultations on a fresh round of EU measures aimed at closing loopholes in the sanctions regime. The rules are likely to include sanctions on Russian gold following a G7 agreement this month, diplomats said, as well as potentially further listings of individuals. The EU aims to approve the package next week.

The US state department welcomed the commission’s making clear how sanctions measures were to be implemented.

Spokesman Ned Price said: “It is important to note that there is not now and there never has been a so-called ‘blockade’ of Kaliningrad. Using a variety of routes, passengers continue to transit between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad, as do all humanitarian shipments and most other goods.”

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2022-07-13 13:50:05Z
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Sri Lanka president flees for the Maldives as prime minister declares emergency - Financial Times

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has fled Sri Lanka on a military aircraft for the Maldives, according to the country’s air force, leaving behind a deepening economic and political crisis in the island nation on a day he was expected to resign in the face of mass protests.

The 73-year-old leader was forced to offer his resignation on Saturday by a street revolt in which tens of thousands of protesters angered by rising prices and shortages of fuel and food converged on Colombo, the commercial capital, and over-ran the presidential palace.

“On government request and under terms of powers available to the president under the constitution, with full approval from the ministry of defence, the president, his wife and two security officials were provided a Sri Lanka air force plane to depart from Katunayake International airport for the Maldives in the early hours of 13 July,” the air force said on Wednesday morning.

Overnight on Tuesday, Rajapaksa and his younger brother Basil Rajapaksa, a former finance minister, had been stopped by immigration officials from boarding commercial flights. “I can confirm to you that he departed last night,” a senior immigration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Financial Times. “All immigration formalities were fulfilled.”

The official said Rajapaksa’s brother remained in the country. He added: “We have no power to stop the president from leaving, as media have claimed.”

In an address shortly after 1pm, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Sri Lanka’s parliamentary Speaker, said Rajapaksa had named Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, as acting president in his place.

Police use tear gas as protesters storm the compound of prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office in Colombo on Wednesday © Rafiq Maqbool/AP

Under Sri Lanka’s constitution, the prime minister is next in line to succeed the president if he resigns. However, as of early afternoon on Wednesday Rajapaksa had not formally resigned.

“As the president is out of the country, under Article 37(1) he has informed me that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been appointed acting president,” Abeywardena said.

Wickremesinghe is himself a target of protesters’ ire, and previously said he would resign once a new unity government was in place.

Rajapaksa’s downfall marks the end of one of Asia’s most powerful political dynasties, who many Sri Lankans credit with winning a long-running and brutal war against Tamil separatists in the north of the country.

However, they now blame him for borrowing heavily to build Chinese-backed Belt and Road spending projects and for a series of failed economic policies that caused Sri Lanka to default on its debt in May.

Word that Rajapaksa had fled was greeted with jubilation by protesters occupying the palace, who had daubed its walls with graffiti including the slogan “Gota, go home”.

“I am happy that he has left, both as a citizen of this country and as a campaigner,” said Nirmani Liyanage of the Citizens Forum, a civic group that belongs to the Aragalaya (Struggle) movement that has been calling for Rajapaksa’s resignation since April.

She said it was an important development for Aragalaya in their pursuit of “accountability, transparency and participatory democracy” in Sri Lanka.

Wickremesinghe on Wednesday morning declared a national state of emergency and a curfew in Western Province, the most populous subdivision that includes Colombo.

Meanwhile, protesters were gathering around his office and calling for him to resign with chants of “Go home Ranil” and “Go home Gota” (Rajapaksa). Wickremesinghe has promised to step down once a new government is in place.

The president’s flight from Sri Lanka leaves a power vacuum at a time when the country needs to form a new government and secure an IMF financing facility. The agreement would unlock financing for emergency loans that would allow it to import essential goods and make headway on talks to restructure its debt.

After Rajapaksa promised to step down, opposition parties began talks on forming a new government, a step needed to secure an IMF programme.

Sri Lanka’s debt pile stands at $51bn, just over half of which is owed to bilateral and multilateral lenders led by China.

According to the UN World Food Programme, more than 6mn people out of a population of 22mn are “food insecure”, meaning they do not consume enough calories to lead a healthy and productive life.

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2022-07-13 08:56:10Z
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Donald Trump 'electrified' mob ahead of January 6 riot, committee says - Financial Times

Donald Trump electrified his far-right supporters by calling on them to protest in Washington on January 6, 2021 before making a carefully-planned plea for them to march on the Capitol, a congressional committee has heard.

Members of the bipartisan panel investigating last year’s mob attack argued during a public hearing on Tuesday that the former president was directly responsible for inciting violence among his supporters who believed Joe Biden had stolen the 2020 election.

Liz Cheney, the Republican deputy chair of the committee, also disclosed that the former president had attempted to contact an unidentified witness who is expected to testify before the committee next week. That witness did not pick up the phone, she said, but instead contacted their lawyer, who told the committee.

“This committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice, she said. “We will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously.”

Tuesday’s hearing focused on Trump’s actions ahead of January 6. Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the committee, said the former president had “electrified and galvanised” his supporters, including many on the extreme right, with a tweet urging them to come to Washington that day to protest the election results.

The committee displayed emails, text messages and a draft tweet all showing the former president had planned for days to use a speech near the White House to urge his supporters to march on Congress.

“When Donald Trump sent out his tweet, he became the first president ever to call for a crowd to descend on the capital city to block the constitutional transfer of power,” Raskin said. “He set off an explosive chain reaction among his followers.”

The committee showed many of Trump’s more extreme supporters using that tweet to generate enthusiasm for the January 6 protest. Alex Jones, a rightwing conspiracy theorist, filmed a video saying that Trump was “now calling on the people to take action to show our numbers”.

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former national media director of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group, told the committee that January 6 “could have been the spark that started a new civil war”.

Members of the committee also showed that many of those around the former president knew he was considering urging protesters to head towards the Capitol building.

They displayed a draft tweet from Trump, which was shown to the former president but never sent, saying: “I will be making a big speech at 10am on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after.”

When Trump made his call during his January 6 speech, it was presented as an off-the-cuff remark, but members of the committee argued he had deliberately sent an armed mob to attack the Capitol building.

Some of those around Trump blamed him for the violence. The committee showed text messages sent by former campaign chief Brad Parscale, saying: “This is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country, a sitting president asking for civil war . . . I feel guilty for helping him.”

The committee also heard evidence from multiple witnesses about how Trump continued to push his false claims that the election had been stolen even while nearly all those closest to him told him it had not.

Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel and close Trump ally, told the committee: “Did I believe he should concede the election at the time? Yes, I did believe that.”

Yet there were some advisers to Trump who wanted him to press his challenge, leading to what was described as a screaming match during a White House meeting in December 2020.

On one side was Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com, and Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser. They wanted the former president to appoint Powell as a special counsel to investigate conspiracy theories that foreign governments had helped change the results which were logged in automatic voting machines.

The other side included Cipollone, Eric Herschmann, another White House lawyer, and White House aide Derek Lyons, who urged the president to reject such conspiracy theories.

Herschmann told the committee: “It got to the point where the screaming was completely, completely out there . . . It was late at night and been a long day, and what they were proposing, I thought, was nuts.”

The meeting finished after midnight, witnesses said. Less than two hours later, Trump sent the tweet at the centre of Tuesday’s hearing: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Next week the committee will hold what is planned to be the last in a series of public hearings before members write their final report. “Our hearing next week will be a profound moment of reckoning for America,” Raskin said.

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2022-07-12 20:59:05Z
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Ukraine claims arms depot attack in occupied Kherson with Himars rockets - BBC

EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock

Ukraine's military says it has destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in the southern city of Nova Kakhovka, killing dozens of soldiers, in an attack apparently involving US-supplied missiles.

However, Russian occupation officials say homes and warehouses were hit, leaving seven dead and up to 80 hurt.

It was not possible to verify the extent of damage or casualties.

Unconfirmed footage of several powerful explosions was shared on social media.

Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak attributed the attack to the US-supplied Himars multiple rocket launcher and spoke of a "reality collision" for the world's "second army". A Russian-installed official in the southern Kherson region, Katerina Gubareva, accused Ukraine of bombing "peaceful cities with American weapons".

Himars is far more accurate than Russia's equivalent systems and is already being credited with a string of recent attacks deep into Russian-held territory.

Large areas of the Kherson region were seized by the Russians in the first weeks of the invasion, but Ukrainian forces have launched a counter-offensive while Russia has focused on its military push into Ukrainian territory in the east. Kyiv has urged residents to leave the area to escape the counter-attack.

Russian-appointed officials made no mention of an arms depot being hit but said instead that warehouses containing the mineral fertiliser saltpetre had exploded - a claim ridiculed by Ukrainian officials.

Ria Novosti/Reuters

Vladimir Leontyev, who was put in charge of the Kherson region, told the Russian Tass news agency that dozens of residents had been left homeless and the city significantly damaged. Another Russian-backed official, Kirill Stremousov, said seven people were still listed as missing.

Details of who was caught up in the explosions were unclear, but Ukrainian military officials said more than 50 Russian soldiers were killed and military hardware destroyed. A spokesman in Odesa, Serhiy Bratchuk, said Nova Kakhovka was now "minus" its ammunition depot.

While Russian claims of damage to civilian buildings could not be confirmed, both sides agreed a Himars launcher had played a part in the attack. The first M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars) arrived in Ukraine at the end of June and were immediately linked to explosions at Russian ammunition depots and command centres as far as 70km from the front line.

Russian TV said Monday night's attack was so powerful that windows within a 2km-radius (1.25 miles) had blown out, flats had been destroyed, and hospitals and a market damaged. Russia has regularly accused Ukraine of targeting its own civilians.

The Russian Ria Novosti agency published footage of what it said was damaged warehouses from a humanitarian aid centre. Ukrainian local official Serhiy Khlan rejected as propaganda Russian claims that a hospital and residential buildings had been destroyed.

Mr Khlan appealed to residents to avoid the areas under attack, asserting that those whose windows had been blown out were happy as they realised Ukrainian forces were close.

Mother of god.
Reportedly, a large Russian ammo depot in Nova Kahovka. pic.twitter.com/YsPDkqBnHK

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 11, 2022

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Meanwhile, Russia's bombardment of Ukrainian cities has claimed further lives. The number killed in Saturday's attack on a five-storey block of flats in the eastern town of Chasiv Yar has risen to 45, including one child, local officials say. Nine people have been rescued from the rubble.

The southern city of Mykolaiv was hit early on Tuesday morning, leaving 12 people wounded.

STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE OF UKRAINE

BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford said windows had been blown out in the main hospital building in the city as well as nearby flats.

There were multiple holes in the ground and shrapnel damage at the scene, she said, from what looked like cluster bombs: "People tell me it was the heaviest night of shelling they remember."

War in Ukraine: More coverage

• ARMS: What weapons are being supplied to Ukraine?
• WATCH: The Afghan refugee commanding Ukrainian troops
• UKRAINE: Hidden drone war precedes next battle in Ukraine
• READ MORE: Full coverage of the crisis

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2022-07-12 16:19:27Z
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Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa faces 'terrible, massive protests' unless he quits - BBC

EPA

Sri Lanka will see a "terrible, massive strike" and huge demonstrations if the president and prime minister do not quit by Wednesday, protest organisers and union leaders have warned.

This is the day President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has promised to resign after he fled crowds who stormed his palace, but many worry he won't keep his word.

A furious public blames him for their worst economic crisis in decades.

Sri Lankans are struggling with rolling power cuts and fuel and food shortages.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said he would step down once an all-party interim government is set up following Mr Rajapaksa's departure.

But many Sri Lankans want him to leave immediately too - because once Mr Rajapaksa departs, under Sri Lanka's constitution, Mr Wickremesinghe would automatically become acting president for 30 days.

"If they do not go by the 13th [of July], we will restart the protests on a different level," protest organiser Father Jeevantha Peiris told the BBC.

"The trade unions and civil rights groups confirm from the 14th onwards they will start a terrible, massive strike along with all the protests." A union leader later confirmed this.

BBC/Tessa Wong

Student leader Wasantha Mudalige warned if the two leaders "try to fool the people, we will take drastic actions and it will be much more intense" than the mass protests on Saturday in the capital, Colombo.

Thousands had swarmed the presidential palace forcing Mr Rajapaksa, an authoritarian leader whose family has dominated the island's politics for almost two decades, to flee. His whereabouts are currently unclear.

Sri Lanka: The basics

• Sri Lanka is an island nation off southern India: It won independence from British rule in 1948. Three ethnic groups - Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim - make up 99% of the country's 22 million population.
• One family of brothers has dominated for years: Mahinda Rajapaksa became a hero among the majority Sinhalese in 2009 when his government defeated Tamil separatist rebels after years of bitter and bloody civil war. His brother Gotabaya, who was defence secretary at the time, is the current president but says he is standing down.
• Presidential powers: The president is the head of state, government and the military in Sri Lanka but does share a lot of executive responsibilities with the prime minister, who heads up the ruling party in parliament.
• Now an economic crisis has led to fury on the streets: Soaring inflation has meant some foods, medication and fuel are in short supply, there are rolling blackouts and ordinary people have taken to the streets in anger with many blaming the Rajapaksa family and their government for the situation.

Amid uncertainty on the eve of his expected departure, organisers of the Aragalaya protest movement - named after the Sinhalese word for "struggle" - announced a list of demands at a public meeting with political parties and trade unions at Colombo library.

Besides demands for the resignations of the two leaders and everyone in their government, they also called for the executive presidency to be abolished, immediate economic relief and a People's Council to advise the government.

They also want the country's coffers, which most believe were drained by corruption, to be replenished. How this would be achieved is not clear.

• First fuel in days trickles through to Sri Lankans
• Inside the palace now full of the people
• The daily heartbreak of life in a country gone bankrupt
• Why is Sri Lanka in crisis?

Representatives of political parties in parliament were present and said they agreed with the protesters' points, with one lawmaker even saying sorry for allowing the country to slide into economic crisis under their watch.

"To my other parliamentarians: we should apologise and rectify the situation, and be accountable to the people," he said as the dozens-strong crowd clapped.

BBC/Tessa Wong

But some also warned the protests could not continue indefinitely as the country needed stability.

"Aragalaya has to accept whoever comes into power next. You cannot keep protesting," said one representative from the opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

The question of what's next for the movement looms large.

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Since it began in May, it has been driven by ordinary citizens joining forces with a vast array of interest groups - from unionists and farmers to artists, students and socialists - for one single goal: removing Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his brother Mahinda and the rest of their family from power. The president is the only one of these who remains in office.

But the protest movement's hydra-headed strength has also proved to be a weakness: it has been largely leaderless with no charismatic figure emerging for people to unite behind.

EPA

Factions have clashed over the direction of the movement and one dispute between two socialist groups led to a physical fight that left several injured in the capital on Monday night, according to local media reports.

It has also meant the protest movement for now cannot offer a contender for the country's leadership once Mr Rajapaksa goes. Deep public suspicion of politicians has meant there is no clear favourite among those in parliament either.

Though the leader of the opposition Sajith Premadasa has put himself forward for the top job, he is seen by some as politically inexperienced and ineffective, and has yet to attract strong public support.

But protest organisers the BBC spoke to on Tuesday said they saw the movement remaining as a check on any future government, and were optimistic it could play a role in moving the country out of its current political and economic deadlock.

"With people power, it's possible," said Father Jeevantha. "The international community and the Sri Lanka diaspora, they are ready to help. People are united and ready to make sacrifices.

"We have a good moment now with the people's power."

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2022-07-12 15:39:21Z
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