Protestors again attacked the Sri Lankan Prime Minister’s office and forced State TV stations to shut telecasts on Wednesday even as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Prime Minster Ranil Wickremesinghe as Acting President.
Despite the clamping of an island-wide State Emergency and curfew in the Western province on Wednesday, crowds of agitators attacked the Prime Minister’s office and occupied it. They also attacked the State TV stations Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and Independent Television Network and forced them suspend telecasts. The agitators demanded that they telecast only unbiased news.
The leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has urged both the President and the Prime Minister to resign immediately.
The decisions regarding the Prime Minster were announced in the same statement issued by Gotabaya Rajapaksa from his safe haven in the Maldives.
The announcement entitled ‘Government Notice’ said: “ It is hereby notified that I, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, being of the opinion that I am unable to exercise . perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions of the Office of the President, and by reason of my absence from Sri Lanka, do hereby appoint Hon Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, under Art 37 (1) of the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, with effect from July 13, 2022,to exercise, perform and discharge the powers,duties and functions of the Office of President during such period of my absence from Sri Lanka.”
Meanwhile the Speaker of parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena announced that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had appointed Wickremesinghe as the Acting President and that Rajapaksa had informed him that he would submit his resignation “within today”