'One Of The Darkest Hours': Sri Lanka Roiled By Prime Minister's Abrupt Dismissal
President Maithripala Sirisena fired and replaced his former ally with a controversial former leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa. But lawmakers have rejected what they call a subversion of the constitution.
Just days after Sri Lanka's president abruptly dismissed its prime minister and his cabinet, replacing him with a former leader, the country's upper echelons of power appear deadlocked in an increasingly bitter tug-of-war. Many lawmakers are decrying the move as unconstitutional, and those calls only grew louder when President Maithripala Sirisena suspended Parliament over the weekend.
The man he sacked Friday, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has refused to cede his office to Sirisena's appointed replacement — despite the fact that Mahinda Rajapaksa, a former strongman president to replace Wickremesinghe as prime minister not long after the firing.
