Former 5-time Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will take oath as Sri Lanka's PM. United National Party (UNP) has confirmed that the leader will be taking oath at 6.30pm today. Dailymirror reported that Wickremesinghe had held a closed-door meeting with Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. After taking oath, he is expected to visit a temple in Colombo.
The news comes at the heels of the opposition being divided over a name for the post of PM. When president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, on May 8, invited Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa to form an interim government, he turned down the invite.
Sri Lanka is currently in the throes of unprecedented economic turmoil since its independence from Britain in 1948.
Thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets across Sri Lanka since April 9, as the government ran out of money for vital imports; prices of essential commodities have skyrocketed and there are acute shortages in fuel, medicines and electricity supply.
