Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has stepped down from his post, following his party’s presidential election debacle.

In a special statement, the Prime Minister said that he had met President GotabayaRajapaksa on Tuesday and discussed the future of Sri Lanka’s parliament.

Ranil Wickremesinghe’s move now makes way for new President Rajapaksa, elected on Saturday in a landslide, to appoint a replacement of his choice and a new government.

Wickremesinghe’s candidate Sajith Premadasa was soundly beaten by Rajapaksain a highly divisive presidential election in the island nation.

The first president to have served the Sri Lankan army, Rajapaksa, 70, comfortably garnered more than 52 percent of the popular vote in Saturday’s election, primarily from the island’s Sinhala majority.

The former defence secretary and now president, who won the decades-long war against the Tamil rebels, acknowledged that he “always knew it was possible to win an election only with a Sinhala majority vote”.

Sources said President Rajapaksa will appoint his elder brother and former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, the current main opposition leader, as the next prime minister.

Mahinda, who was appointed as the PM in October 2018, resigned in December as two crucial Supreme Court decisions made the embattled former strongman’s efforts to cling to premiership untenable.

The current parliament was elected in August 2015 for a five-year term and cannot be dissolved by Rajapaksa until March, six months before its term ends. Since Rajapaksa’s party does not enjoy a majority in the 225-member assembly it is dependent on Wickremesinghe’s United National Party to form a minority government until the next parliamentary election.