Colombo: Sri Lanka's Acting President and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday asked Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to nominate a Prime Minister who is acceptable to both the government and the Opposition.
In a statement, the Prime Minister's Office said that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe held a meeting with the Members of the Cabinet at his office on Monday.
All the ministers who participated in this meeting were of the opinion that as soon as there is an agreement to form an all-party government, they will hand over the responsibilities to that government, it said.
Accordingly, the ruling party and the opposition must form an all-party government.
Wickremesinghe is under pressure to quit before the expected resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is said to be flying from the Maldives to Singapore.
The protesters who stormed Wickremesinghe's office on Wednesday are attempting to enter the parliament compound at the time of reporting. The police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters near the official residence of the speaker, police said.
A 26-year-old protester had died of breathing difficulties after being admitted to hospital. He was part of the group that stormed the prime minister's office this morning where 35 others had also been injured.
The Prime Minister's Media Division said the ruling party and the opposition must form an all-party Government.
President Rajapaksa on Wednesday fled to the Maldives from where he appointed Prime Minister Wickremesinghe as the acting President, escalating the political crisis and triggering a fresh wave of protests in the country reeling under the worst financial crisis in decades.
Speaker Abeywardena has said that President Rajapaksa has informed him over telephone that he will resign today as promised. He said the vote for the new president will take place on July 20.
President Rajapaksa issued a Gazette Extraordinary, appointing Wickremesinghe as the acting president to exercise, perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions of the Office of President with effect from July 13, 2022.
Wickremesinghe, who is now Acting President, has declared a state of emergency in the country and a curfew in the Western province has been imposed as protesters gathered near his office at Flower Road in Colombo.
Protesters surge into PM office
On Wednesday, protesters surged into the prime minister's office despite police stationed outside firing teargas. Wickremesinghe urged people in a video message to respect the constitution. His whereabouts were unknown.
Sri Lanka's defence chief, General Shavendra Silva, called for calm.
"We have requested political leaders to decide the way forward till a new president is sworn in and notify us and the public by this evening," Silva said.
The sole member of the opposition United National Party (UNP), Wickremesinghe was sworn in by Rajapaksa in May, replacing the president's brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who resigned amid earlier street protests.
"We are facing a crisis, we have to get out of it," Wickremesinghe told Reuters as he left a temple in the main city of Colombo shortly after his swearing-in. Asked whether there was a possible solution, he replied: "Absolutely."
That solution has not come yet. Power blackouts, soaring prices, fuel shortages and collapsing hard currency reserves are signs of how vulnerable Sri Lanka's economy is.
The country is in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout, and has relied on credit from India and other Asian nations to make ends meet this year.
Wickremesinghe, who married a university lecturer in 1995, is from a prominent family of politicians and businessmen with large interests in the media.
He has been thrust into the political spotlight before.
In 1978, he was made the country's youngest cabinet minister at the age of 29 by his uncle, President Junius Jayewardene. He became party leader in 1994 after assassinations wiped out several of the party's more senior members.
In contrast to Mahinda Rajapaksa, he has little support beyond wealthy urban voters. Wickremesinghe is the only UNP lawmaker in the country's 225-seat parliament.
The economic liberal already has experience with the IMF. Sri Lanka last had an IMF programme in 2016 during one of his tenures as prime minister.
He has also built relationships with regional powers India and China, key investors and lenders who vie for influence over the island nation that lies along busy shipping routes linking Asia to Europe.
Some analysts said he was a wily politician, a shrewd dealmaker and someone capable of playing the long game.
But he has not been able to escape the wave of unrest sweeping Sri Lanka, even if he has not always seen eye to eye with the now-reviled Rajapaksa family that has dominated politics for much of the last 20 years.
In 2019, then-president Maithripala Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe, replacing him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, a decision that was subsequently ruled as unconstitutional.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is under the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and other essentials. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe last week said Sri Lanka is now a bankrupt country.
(With PTI and Reuters inputs.)
