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COLOMBO (Reuters) – Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was inaugurated on Friday as Prime Minister after President Maithripala Sirisena fired incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe in a surprise threat to political turmoil in the nation of the Indian Ocean.
Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa arrives at a temple after being sworn in Colombo, Sri Lanka, as the new Prime Minister on October 26, 2018. REUTERS / Dinuka Liyanawatte
The appointment was confirmed in a statement from the president's office, but Wickremesinghe later told local television that he remained the prime minister.
"I keep the trust of the house. I am the Prime Minister and I have the majority, "Wickremesinghe said. "According to the constitution, I am the prime minister. This is not legal.
Images from local television showed that Rajapaksa, who last month led opposition protests against the government, was sworn in before Sirisena, surrounded by several opposition lawmakers.
Minister of Finance and Finance Mangala Samaraweera said on Twitter that appointing Rajapaksa as prime minister was a violation of the constitution, amended in 2015, highlighting the risk of chaos in Sri Lanka, where the government was under pressure. limit the executive powers of the president.
"It's an anti-democratic coup," Samaraweera tweeted.
The United People's Alliance for Freedom (UPFA) of Sirisensa announced its intention to leave the ruling coalition, thus limiting tensions between the president's bloc and the Wickremesinghe center-right United Nations Party (UNP) .
The UPFA legislator, Susil Premejayantha, told reporters that a new cabinet would soon be sworn.
The ruling coalition had been severely tested in recent days by the harsh criticism of Sirisena and her allies that Wickremesinghe's party ministers had not acted properly in an investigation into a plot to assassinate former Defense Secretary and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the younger brother of the new prime minister. .
The alleged plot briefly threatened to create tension between Sri Lanka and India, after Sirisena was accused of involvement of Indian intelligence services – an assertion that New Delhi and Colombo have denied.
Sirisena, along with legislators from the UPFA, including the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP), left-wing party, formed a coalition government with the UNPU of Wickremesinghe shortly after Sirisena defeated his former ally Rajapaksa in a January 2015 presidential election.
UNP and UPFA, an alliance of several Sri Lankan parties, consolidated their coalition after legislative elections in August 2015.
But both coalition partners suffered heavy defeats in last February's local elections against a Rajapaksa-backed party. Sirisena's loyalists backed a no-confidence vote in April against the prime minister, who survived after a majority of lawmakers voted in favor of his coalition government.
In early September, Rajapaksa led thousands of opposition protesters blocking a main road in Colombo in protest of economic hardship and postponement of elections to the provinces.
Report by Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal; Edited by Robin Pomeroy and Alex Richardson
