Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday took over as the acting president, hours after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives amid protests against him in the country.
Speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said Gotabaya Rajapaksa approved Wickremesinghe as acting president, invoking a section of the constitution dealing with times when the president is unable to fulfil his duties, reports Reuters.
In a video statement, the speaker also said Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will send his resignation letter on Wednesday.
"The president got in touch with me over the phone and said that he will ensure that his resignation letter will be received by me today (Wednesday)," speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said.
"I appeal to the public to have confidence in the parliamentary process we have outlined to appoint a new president on the 20th and be peaceful."
Later in the day, Ranil Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency and a curfew with immediate effect.
Wickremesinghe's media secretary, Dinouk Colombage, said, "The prime minister as acting president has declared a state of emergency (countrywide) and imposed a curfew in Western Province." Western Province includes Colombo.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people were demanding the resignation of the prime minister as well and fighting street battles with riot police. They surrounded his office in Colombo.
"Ranil go home!" they chanted as they tried to storm the office of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Police fired several rounds of tear gas and a military helicopter briefly circled overhead, but the protesters appeared undeterred.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards left the main international airport near Colombo aboard a Sri Lankan Air Force plane early on Wednesday, the air force said in a statement.
Government sources and aides said the president's brothers, former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, were still in Sri Lanka.
A government source and a person close to Rajapaksa said he was in Male, the capital of the Maldives. The president would most likely proceed to another Asian country from there, the government source said.
Rajapaksa was due to step down as president on Wednesday to make way for a unity government.