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COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka seems to have been politically arrested on Thursday. The Speaker of Parliament said that there was no more prime minister or cabinet after Wednesday's vote of no confidence.
FILE PHOTO: Karu Jayasuriya, Speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament, attends a meeting of party leaders and their members in the Parliament of Colombo, Sri Lanka, November 2, 2018.REUTERS / Dinuka Liyanawatte
His comments came after weeks of political turmoil on the island, off the southeastern coast of India, and ended Thursday with loud chaos.
On Wednesday, the parliament passed a motion of censure against newly-appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government, with the support of 122 legislators from the 225-member legislature, at a vote in the follow-up vote. of a signed document.
But President Maithripala Sirisena, in a letter to President Karu Jayasuriya, said that he could not accept the vote of censure because he seemed to have ignored the constitution, parliamentary procedure and tradition.
"We expect the President that he be an independent president and not a close friend of your party or the West," Rajapaksa told parliament. "We want a general election."
He also said that the previous government led by the deposed prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was corrupt.
"According to the vote of censorship held yesterday, there is no prime minister or cabinet of ministers at the moment, all these positions being invalidated by the vote," said Jayasuriya in Parliament .
Sirisena, who unleashed the crisis by dismissing Wickremesinghe and appointing Rajapaksa at the end of last month, dissolved parliament last week and ordered elections to break the stalemate.
But the Supreme Court ordered the suspension of the decree on Tuesday until it heard petitions challenging the movement as unconstitutional.
Shortly after his speech, Rajapaksa's supporters invaded parliament and disrupted the debate.
Then, members from both sides gathered near the chair of the chair with a lot of shouting and screaming. The turmoil lasted nearly 20 minutes, after which the President, not clearing the proceedings, left the Parliament without making a statement.
After a meeting with party leaders, the president decided to convene the next session of parliament on Wednesday, the media reported.
Mahinda Samarasinghe, a Rajapaksa supporter, blamed the president for inviting foreign emissaries to attend the talks, saying he was trying to destroy the parliament's perception.
Rajapaksa, whose Sri Lankan triumph in 2009 over a decade-long conflict with the rebels of the Tamil minority, is considered a hero by many among Sri Lanka's Buddhist majority. Diplomats accused him of violating human rights during the war, which he denies.
Report by Shihar Aneez; Edited by Martin Howell and Nick Macfie
