In a major setback to President Maithripala Sirisena, the Sri Lankan parliament on Wednesday passed a no-confidence motion against newly appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government.
This comes a day after the Supreme Court overturned a presidential decree dissolving the legislature and calling for snap elections.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya ruled that a majority of the 225-member assembly supported the motion of no-confidence against Rajapakse who was appointed prime minister on October 26 in place of Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Since October 26, Sri Lanka had been in a political crisis when President Sirisena fired Ranil Wickremesinghe as the prime minister and replaced him with former strongman Rajapaksa.
