Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has officially resigned, the country’s parliamentary Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena confirmed on Friday morning, PTI reported.

Amid widespread protests against the island nation’s biggest economic distress, Rajapaksa had sent his resignation to Abeywardena in an e-mail on Thursday evening. At a press conference on Friday, the speaker said that he has accepted the resignation.

The new president will be appointed within seven days, Abeywardena said. Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe took oath as the acting president on Friday morning, AFP reported. Earlier, Abeywardana had said that Wickremesinghe will hold the position until a new leader is elected.

Demonstrators have for months sought Rajapaksa’s resignation, accusing him of siphoning money and mismanaging the economy. While all members of his politically-powerful family had been forced to resign due to public pressure, Rajapaksa had clung on to power.

After hundreds of thousands of people took over his home and office and the official residence of Wickremesinghe on July 9, the president had agreed to step down on Wednesday. However, hours before he was due to resign, Rajapaksa fled to Maldives.

On Thursday, Rajapaksa, his wife Ioma and their two bodyguards arrived in Singapore from the Maldives. From there, the embattled president emailed his resignation.

On Friday morning, the Speaker said that the Sri Lankan Parliament will start proceedings on Saturday to elect a new president for the country, reported Newswire.

“My intention is to conduct the necessary parliamentary affairs to elect a new president as per the provisions of the Constitution as soon as possible,” he said. “I request all party leaders to extend their support for this purpose.”

He urged the citizens of Sri Lanka to maintain peace and the political parties to follow a democratic process to elect the new head of the state.

Economic crisis in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has run out of foreign-exchange reserves that has limited essential imports of fuel, food and medicine, plunging it into the worst economic meltdown in 70 years. The island nation’s inflation rate touched 54.6% year-over-year in June while food inflation shot up to 80%.

As the crisis deepened in April, violent clashes erupted between supporters of Rajapaksa’s party and the anti-government demonstrators. In May, 10 persons had died in the clashes.

The economic meltdown led to Sri Lanka defaulting on its $51-billion foreign debt in April and the country is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package.