evidence: COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled on a military jet on Wednesday after angry protesters seized his home and office, and appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting president while he is overseas. Wickremesinghe quickly declared a nationwide state of emergency to counter swelling protests over the country’s economic and political collapse. [...] In his new job, he left little doubt about the grave future ahead. "The next couple of months will be the most difficult ones of our lives," he told Sri Lankans in early June, a few weeks before saying in Parliament that the country had hit rock bottom. "Our economy has completely collapsed," he said. [...] His reputation had already been sullied by his previous stint as prime minister, when he was in a difficult power-sharing arrangement with then-President Maithripala Sirisena. A communication breakdown between them was blamed for intelligence lapses that led to Easter Sunday suicide bombings of churches and hotels in 2019 that killed 290 people.