Sri Lanka has been in political crisis since October when President Maithripala Sirisena abruptly sacked Wickremesinghe and replaced him by Mahinda Rajapaksa.
After his resignation, President Maithripala Sirisena will appoint a new government for Sri Lanka.The Sri Lankan parliament has not been working for the past two weeks. Rajapaksa’s government was unable to pass the next year’s budget and there is a risk of being unable to use state funds from January 1st. A US loan worth 1 billion USD too is due in January.
Rajapaksa is known as a former strongman president who defeated the Tamil Tiger Rebels in 2009 after a long civil war. But he lost the elections in 2015 under allegations of wartime atrocities, corruption and nepotism.
After Sirisena appointed him Prime Minister, Rajapaksa failed to secure a mojority in the 225-member parliament. Sirisena has repeatedly rejected appeals to reappoint Wickremesinghe as prime minister, but may now be compelled to do so since Wickremesinghe has the support of 117 lawmakers in Parliament.
