COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's president has suspended parliament until Nov. 16, even as the prime minister he fired claims he has majority support.

Chaminda Gamage, a spokesman for the parliamentary speaker, confirmed President Maithripala Sirisena's action on Saturday.

The suspension came while ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was holding a news conference in which he asserted that he could prove his majority support in parliament.

Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe and his Cabinet on Friday and replaced him with a former strongman, creating what some observers said could be a constitutional crisis in the South Asian island nation.

Sirisena informed Wickremesinghe that he was being replaced by his former nemesis, Mahinda Rajapaksa.