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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday dissolved parliament and called for new elections in a context of growing political crisis.
An official notification signed by Sirisena announced the dissolution of Parliament, effective midnight on Friday.
The summons indicated that the names of the candidates for the new elections would be announced before 26 November and that the elections would be held on 5 January. The new legislature is scheduled to meet on January 17.
Sri Lanka has been in a political crisis since October 26, when Sirisena sacked his prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and replaced him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Wickremesinghe insisted that his dismissal is unconstitutional. He refused to leave his official residence and asked that Parliament be summoned immediately to prove that he had the support of his members.
Sirisena suspended Parliament for two weeks, which Wickremesinghe's supporters claimed was meant to buy time to boost support.
Local and international calls have been made to convene Parliament to end the stalemate.
Under pressure, Sirisena announced that Parliament would be convened on 14 November. He maintained his choice of Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, majority in Parliament. However, the decision to dissolve Parliament shows that this is not the case, observers say.
"The dissolution clearly indicates that Mr. Sirisena grossly misjudged and miscalculated the support that he could or could obtain to demonstrate his support for Parliament," said Bharath Gopalaswamy, director of the Center for South Asia's the Atlantic Council, based in New Delhi.
"At the end of the day, he is a victim of the crisis in his home."
The Wickremesinghe camp is likely to challenge Sirisena's decision because of constitutional provisions stipulating that a parliament can only be dissolved four and a half years after its creation. The current Parliament was elected in August 2015.
"It's totally unconstitutional," said Harsha de Silva, a member of Wickremesinghe's Unified National Party and former minister.
"Sirisena relegated the constitution to toilet paper. We will fight this dictator until the end. "
In a Twitter message, the party said it would meet with the Elections Commissioner to discuss the constitutionality of Sirisena's decision.
The US State Department said on its Twitter page that it was deeply concerned by the announcement of the dissolution of the Sri Lankan Parliament, "further deepening the political crisis".
"As a committed partner of Sri Lanka, we believe that democratic institutions and processes must be respected to ensure stability and prosperity."
Earlier, United States Representative Eliot Engel, the highest-ranking Democratic Party member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and two other legislators wrote to the Sri Lankan President to warn him that circumventing the democratic process could have an impact on US aid, including a planned five – year assistance program. Millennium Challenge Corporation worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
"We are concerned that recent actions, if left unchecked, will threaten the democratic development of your country and jeopardize the progress made in recent years," the three lawmakers said in a letter copied by the Associated Press.
Rajapaksa said what would happen a few hours before the breakup in a speech. He said the government should ask the people if the president had made the right decision when he appointed him prime minister.
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Emily Schmall, writer at the Associated Press in New Delhi, India, and Matthew Pennington in Washington, DC, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.
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