Sri Lanka parliament suspension challenged
COLOmBO: Supporters of Sri Lanka’s fired prime minister and a top election official challenged in court the president’s sacking of parliament, upping the ante in a political crisis that has sparked international alarm.
President Maithripala Sirisena late last Friday called snap elections and dissolved the legislature, two weeks after sacking the prime minister and installing the divisive Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place.
The United States has led a cho- rus of international voices expressing concern over events in the strategically important Indian Ocean island nation of 21 million people.
Three political parties holding an absolute majority in parliament and an election commissioner, one of three officials tasked with conducting polls, yesterday asked the Supreme Court to declare the president’s actions illegal.
Commissioner Ratnajeevan Hoole was among 12 petitioners arguing that Sirisena had violated the constitution.
In the five-page petition, Hoole said Sirisena broke the law in calling the snap elections for Jan 5 after a string of unconstitutional moves since Oct 26 when he fired Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister.
Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP), the main opposition Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the leftist JVP, or People’s Liberation Front jointly filed the action. — AFP