[The brazenness of recent moves — including claims that Mr. Rajapaksa’s supporters offered hefty cash bribes to entice opposition lawmakers to switch sides — led some to complain that Sri Lanka’s democracy was regressing to the strongman politics that dominated during Mr. Rajapaksa’s decade as president.]
By Dharisha Bastians and Vindu
Goel
 |
|
Prime
minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, center left, and president Maithripala Sirisena,
center
right, at a rally in Colombo on Monday. Credit M a Pushpa Kumara/EPA,
via
Shutterstock
|
COLOMBO,
Sri Lanka — The president of
Sri Lanka dissolved the country’s Parliament on Friday night and called for
elections in January to choose new lawmakers, a move that critics said was
illegal, and that deepened a two-week-old constitutional crisis over who is the
legitimate prime minister of the island nation.
The move followed President Maithripala
Sirisena’s dismissal in late October of Sri Lanka’s prime minister, Ranil
Wickremesinghe, and his naming as a replacement a popular former president who
had been accused of human rights abuses, nepotism and excessively close ties to
China during his tenure.
Mr. Wickremesinghe and many members of
Parliament challenged the appointment of his successor, Mahinda Rajapaksa. No
major foreign country, including the United States, has recognized the new
government. They have urged Sri Lankan leaders to allow Parliament to choose
between the two men.
Sri Lanka, strategically located off the
coast of India, is deeply in debt to China and was forced to turn over control
of an important port to that country. Its close ties to China have alarmed both
the United States and India, which fear China’s growing influence in the
region.
Mr. Sirisena justified his removal of Mr.
Wickremesinghe by saying that he was corrupt and that a member of his cabinet
had plotted with India to kill Mr. Sirisena. He temporarily suspended
Parliament but then agreed to reconvene the 225-member body on Nov. 14. At that
time, lawmakers were supposed to choose between the two rivals for prime
minister.
On Friday, a spokesman for Mr. Rajapaksa
acknowledged that his party did not yet have enough support to win that floor
test. Hours later, Mr. Sirisena signed papers that dissolved Parliament and
called for elections on Jan. 5 to choose new lawmakers.
The brazenness of recent moves — including
claims that Mr. Rajapaksa’s supporters offered hefty cash bribes to entice
opposition lawmakers to switch sides — led some to complain that Sri Lanka’s
democracy was regressing to the strongman politics that dominated during Mr.
Rajapaksa’s decade as president.
“The political darkness of authoritarianism
is engulfing us once more,” said Jayadeva Uyangoda, a professor of political
science at Colombo University, in a lecture on Thursday.
Mr. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party
said the dissolution of Parliament was unconstitutional. “We will be fighting
this to ensure that democracy reigns supreme in the country,” the party said in
a tweet.
Ajith Perera, a lawmaker from the United
National Party, said that it would urge the independent Elections Commission,
which would oversee any voting, not to conduct any elections. “We are appealing
to the Elections Commission to resolve this issue without bloodshed,” he said.
While Mr. Rajapaksa’s party, the Sri Lanka
People’s Front, does not have deep support in Parliament, it performed very
well in local elections in February. It would most likely win any parliamentary
election held now amid popular discontent with the struggling Sri Lankan
economy.
Mr. Rajapaksa’s brother and the country’s
former defense secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said in a tweet: “The genuine
power of the people should deliver a stable and progressive future at this
critical juncture of our nation. I am confident that the people of Sri Lanka
will make the right choice.”
The issue is very likely to end up before the
Supreme Court, with Mr. Wickremesinghe’s party and citizen groups already
preparing petitions challenging the dissolution of Parliament.
The country has been in political gridlock
since Oct. 26, when Mr. Sirisena dismissed Mr. Wickremesinghe, an electoral
ally since 2015, and swore in Mr. Rajapaksa as the new prime minister. Before
the 2015 elections, Mr. Sirisena had been a cabinet member in the government of
Mr. Rajapaksa, a former president who had been accused of corruption and human
rights violations during the country’s long civil war against Tamil
separatists.
Mr. Wickremesinghe has refused to leave the
prime minister’s residence in Colombo, the nation’s capital, and his ministers
claim that they remain the country’s lawful government.
Jayampathy Wickremaratne, one of Sri Lanka’s
most senior constitutional law experts, said that a constitutional amendment —
championed by Mr. Sirisena and passed in April 2015 — allowed the dissolution
of Parliament only after four and a half years of its five-year term, or upon
the request of two-thirds of the members. The next regularly scheduled
parliamentary elections is August 2020.
Mr. Sirisena cited a different provision of the
constitution in dissolving Parliament on Friday and calling for elections
sooner.
The military has remained silent during the
two-week power struggle. Thousands of supporters of each side have rallied in
the streets of Colombo, and at one point, the bodyguards of one of Mr.
Wickremesinghe’s ministers fired into a crowd, killing one person and injuring
two others.
Dharisha Bastians reported from Colombo, Sri
Lanka, and Vindu Goel from Goa, India.
