Angry Lankans denounce 'coup'

More than 10,000 protesting supporters of Sri Lanka's ousted prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, brought parts of the capital, Colombo, to a standstill yesterday as political turmoil on the island entered its fifth day.

Sri Lanka was plunged into crisis on Friday when President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe and swore in ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa to replace him, breaking up a fragile coalition governing the country.

Sirisena also suspended parliament, to the fury of Wickremesinghe's supporters, who say the president is trying to prevent lawmakers from keeping him in power.

Yesterday, thousands of protesters gathered near Wickremesinghe's residence to hear the ousted prime minister speak, holding signs demanding that Sirisena to preserve democracy.

"He has broken his promise and taken the executive powers into his hands," Wickremesinghe, who was seen as pro-India, told the crowd, referring to Sirisena.

"This is a coup. It has all the characteristics of a coup," one of the protesters, Deepanjalie Abeywardene, told Reuters, while holding a sign which read "reconvene the parliament".

The speaker of parliament, Karu Jayasuriya, has also refused to recognise Rajapaksa as the new prime minister, warning of "bloodshed" if the standoff moves to the streets.

Sirisena named a new cabinet on Monday with Rajapaksa in charge of finance.

India, caught flatfooted by the appointment of Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka's premier, has opened urgent diplomatic and political contacts with the strongman who drew close to China during his previous tenure as president, officials said.

The tear-shaped island, located off the southern tip of India, has become an arena of tussle between New Delhi and Beijing, which has built ports, power stations and highways as part of its Belt and Road Initiative of trade and transport links across Asia.

Rajapaksa had opened up Sri Lanka's main port to Chinese naval submarines when he was president, which stoked anger in India.

"It is advantage China at the moment," said Srikanth Kondappali, a specialist on India-China ties at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Sri Lanka is one of a chain of countries where the India-China rivalry is playing out, stretching from Bangladesh, Nepal to the Maldives.

Indian diplomats were in contact with Rajapaksa's camp, officials in New Delhi said, adding they were ready to do business with the new leader so long as his appointment was in line with the country's constitution.

Harinda Vidanage, director of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, a thinktank in Colombo, said Sri Lanka had become a greater strategic prize after the pro-China president of the Maldives, Abdulla Yameen, lost the election.

Shailesh Kumar, Asia director at the Eurasia group, said the changes in Sri Lanka would benefit China. "While Beijing lost a pro-Chinese government earlier this month in the Maldives, it will make up ground in South Asia with the change of guard in Sri Lanka," he said.