COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s prime minister was sworn in as its interim president Friday until Parliament elects a successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned after mass protests over the country’s economic collapse forced him from office.

Lawmakers were to convene Saturday to choose a new leader who would serve out the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. A tenuous calm was restored after protesters who had occupied government buildings retreated Thursday, but with the political opposition deeply fractured, a solution to Sri Lanka’s many woes seemed no closer.

As people celebrated in the streets, the parliamentary speaker, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana, promised a swift and transparent political process that should be done within a week.

The new president could appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament. After Rajapaksa resigned, pressure on the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was rising.

In a televised statement, Wickremesinghe said he would initiate steps to change the constitution to curb presidential powers and strengthen Parliament, restore law and order and take legal action against “insurgents.”

Wickremesinghe became the acting president after Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka on Wednesday, flying first to the Maldives and then to Singapore. The prime minister’s office said Wickremesinghe was sworn in Friday as interim president before Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya.

Sri Lanka has run short of money to pay for imports of basic necessities such as food, fertilizer, medicine and fuel, to the despair of its 22 million people. Its rapid economic decline has been all the more shocking because, before this crisis, the economy had been expanding, with a growing, comfortable middle class.