President Sirisena dissolves Sri Lanka parliament, sets Jan 5 as snap election date

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday dissolved parliament after the Mahinda Rajapaksa government’s inability to face a No Confidence Motion which was due to be taken up after the reconvening of parliament on Nov 14.

Later, a gazette notification announced that the parliamentary elections will be held on Jan 5 next year and the new parliament will meet on Jan 17.

The current government will remain in power until then.

The Rajapaksa government had been installed by President Sirisena on Oct 26 after sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in a widely criticised move around two years before the government’s tenure was supposed to end.

But the Rajapaksa government could not muster the support of a minimum of 113 MPs in a House with a total strength of 225 members to be in power and defeat the No Confidence Motion filed earlier by the Joint Opposition led by Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP).

Only eight MPs from the UNP and the United National Front (UNF) crossed over since Oct 26.

The Muslim and Tamil parties, which were with the UNP-led United National Front (UNF), had issues with Rajapaksa when he was president from 2005 to 2014 on the ethnic issue. They refused to cross over to the Rajapaksa side.

When this became clear, President Sirisena had two options. One was to ask Rajapaksa to face the No Confidence Motion and if he failed to make it, appoint Wickremesinghe again as prime minister.

The other option was to dissolve parliament and order fresh elections so that the people of Sri Lanka, in whom sovereignty ultimately resides, may decide which party should rule and who should be prime minister.

But President Sirisena could not envisage the prospect of re-appointing Wickremesinghe as prime minister because he had pledged that he would resign from the presidency if Wickresinghe had to be sworn in as prime minister.

Sirisena had publicly stated that he differed from Wickremesinghe in all respects from politics and policy to culture. Their inter-personal relations had deteriorated to a point of no return.

Sirisena had been at odds with Wickremesinghe for the past two years. Decisions taken by Wickremesinghe as prime minister were being overturned almost daily by Sirisena as the country’s Executive President. And Wickremesinghe took decisions without consulting the president.

The last straw on Sirisena’s back was his belief that Wickremesihnghe was not properly investigating an alleged plot to kill him.

Sirisena also kept complaining that the right wing Wickremesinghe was giving in to the Western powers’ demands on the ethnic, human rights and economic issues to the detriment of the country.

Sirisena was also under tremendous pressure from his colleagues in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to align with the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) led by Mahinda Rajapaksa who had broken away from the SLFP after he was defeated by Sirisena in the January 2015 presidential election.

SLFP leaders and cadres, who could not work with the UNP as part of the SLFP-UNP coalition government, were pressing Sirisena to ditch the UNP and tie up with Rajapaksa who showed his tremendous popularity in the February local government elections.

Initially, Sirisena hesitated to break the alliance with the UNP because he had come to power with the help of the UNP. He hesitated to sack Wickremesinghe.

But with the sharp deterioration of his relations with Wickremesinghe  he yielded to the party men’s demand and sacked Wickremesinghe on Oct 26 and appointed Rajapaksa as Prime Minister in his place.

While the opposition, intellectuals, the media, and the international community protested vehemently, saying that the move was undemocratic  because Wickremesinghe had majority support in parliament, the president said he had the power to sack a prime minister and ask a new prime minister to prove his majority in parliament.

Sirisena had also explained to the people why he could not get along with Wickremesinghe and why he desperately needed someone else to be prime minister so that government work could be conducted harmoniously.

Sirisena got more flak when he prorogued parliament from Oct 27 to Nov 16, apparently to give new Prime Minister Rajapaksa time to garner support from the opposition.

After parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya insisted that parliament should be called immediately to settle the issue, the president issued a proclamation summoning parliament on Nov 14.

In the meanwhile, Sirisena and Rajapaksa tried hard to get 113 to support them, but failed and the dissolution of parliament followed.