Sri Lankan prime minister appointed as acting president
Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been appointed as the country’s acting president, speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana announced on Wednesday.
In a statement broadcast on TV, Mr Abeywardena said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who left the country earlier in the day, had given the authority for Mr Wickremesinghe to act on his behalf.
Mr Rajapaksa fled the country to the Maldives on an air force flight after weeks of protests and the storming of his office on Saturday.
Mr Wickremesinghe,73, was appointed as the prime minister by Mr Rajapaksa after they held a closed-door discussion on Wednesday.
Mr Wickremesinghe, who served as the country’s prime minister four times, was in October 2018 fired from the post by Sri Lanka’s seventh president, Maithripala Sirisena.
However, he was reinstalled as the prime minister by Mr Sirisena after two months.
(dpa/NAN)
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