Thousands of protesters stormed the offices of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday, hours after he was named interim president, witnesses said.
Crowds overwhelmed law enforcement and entered the building, raising country flags, as police and military tried to push them back with tear gas and water cannons.
Earlier in the day, the Speaker of Parliament announced the appointment by the fugitive Head of State Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Mr. Wickremesinghe as interim President.
In a televised address, Mr. Wickremesinghe asked the army and the police to restore order, but the troops retreated and left the doors of the building open to the demonstrators.
“I have ordered the military commands and the chief of police to do what is necessary to restore order,” the prime minister said.
The protesters “want to prevent me from fulfilling my responsibilities as interim president”, he added. “We cannot allow the fascists to take over.”
“We cannot tear up our Constitution. We cannot allow the fascists to take over. We must end this fascist threat to democracy,” he said, adding that public buildings occupied by protesters must be returned to the state.
During the day, the government had declared a state of emergency and the police had imposed a curfew in the province of Colombo.
But that did not deter the thousands of protesters gathered outside the prime minister’s office.
Other demonstrators disrupted the antenna of the main public television channel.
An unidentified man entered the studio of the Rupavahini channel during a live broadcast and ordered that only information relating to the protests be broadcast. The transmission was cut and replaced by a recorded program.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had promised last weekend to resign on Wednesday, but, having arrived earlier in the day in the Maldives, he has not yet formalized his withdrawal.