i'm joined now by david brewster, a specialist in sri lankan politics with the australia national universityiversity. to get you on the program, david. great to get you on the program, david. just to start by saying, the dramatic developments we've had just in the last hour of so, what is your sense of how they will impact sri is political situation go forward? your riaht political situation go forward? your right there's _ political situation go forward? 7m;- right there's extraordinary scenes of the last few days with the storming of the presidential palace and the attempts by the president to leave the country being blocked by other countries and his own officials. so we're not yet sure where he's going to or in deed what the procedure will be, the constitutional procedure will be in the coming days to appoint first of all in acting president and a permanent president. but what is clear is that this instability is not short—lived, it's going to continue for months or even years. yes. as you say, the instability we're seeing on the streets in sri lanka with protests taking place, will this

earlier i spoke to david brewster, a specialist in sri lankan politics at the australia national universityaksa's departure will have on the country's political situation. there's extraordinary scenes of the last few days with the storming of the presidential palace and the attempts by the president to leave the country being blocked by other countries and his own officials. so we're not yet sure where he's going to or indeed what the procedure will be, the constitutional procedure will be in the coming days to appoint first of all, an acting president and a permanent president. but what is clear is that this instability is not short—lived, it's going to continue for months or even years. yes. as you say, the instability we're seeing on the streets in sri lanka with protests taking place, will this departure of the president be enough to stop those protests? do you think people will be satisfied with these imminent resignations? well, his departure obviously meets their immediate demands. but underlines the demand is the incredible economic crisis that we've seen in sri lanka over the last