Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Acting President in accordance with the Article 37.1 of the Constitution, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardhane said on Wednesday.
He added in a special statement that the President has informed him that the Prime Minister was appointed as the Acting President as he was away from the country, the Daily Mirror reported.
President Rajapaksa has arrived in the Maldives earlier on Wednesday morning after having fled Sri Lanka and will be making his way to a final destination. Where that is however, is still unclear.
Soon after takeover, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered to impose a curfew in the Western province with immediate effect and to impose emergency law across the island country, a spokesperson in the Prime Minister's office has said.
The Prime Minister has also ordered the security forces to arrest people acting in a riotous manner and the lorries they are travelling, BBC reported.
Thousands of protesters forcefully entered towards the Prime Minister's office on Flower Road in state capital Colombo -- a 20-minute walk away from the main protest site of Galle Face Green.
Wickremesinghe had said he would step down once an all-party interim government is set up following President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's departure, BBC reported.
But many Sri Lankan people want the Prime Minister to leave immediately.
This is because once Rajapaksa departs, under Sri Lanka's constitution, Wickremesinghe would automatically become acting President for 30 days, BBC reported.
"If we don't hear of the resignation of the President and the Prime Minister by Wednesday evening, we may have to gather back and take over Parliament or another government building," protester Buddhi Prabodha Karunaratne had earlier told Reuters.
"We are strongly against the Gota-Ranil government. Both have to go."
