Holed Up in Mansion, Ousted Sri Lanka Prime Minister Vows to Fight
- Ranil Wickremesinghe says he has numbers to run Sri Lanka
- New PM Rajapaksa says parliament to be reconvened on Nov. 5
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While entertaining supporters in the picturesque, seaside town of Galle last Friday, Ranil Wickremesinghe received an urgent call from an aide: he’d just been ousted as Sri Lanka’s prime minister.
The news came as a shock to Wickremesinghe, who rushed back to Colombo, the capital -- a brisk two-hour drive. He held a late-night meeting with his party and other parliamentarians at the prime minister’s official residence, a stately white building surrounded by manicured lawns that used to house the British colonial secretary.