Political crisis in Sri Lanka deepens
Ex-prime minister calls his firing a constitutional coup
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka slid deeper into political crisis Saturday when the president suspended Parliament to block a vote on his surprise decision to fire the prime minister and install the country’s former president in his place.
Mahinda Rajapaksa took the prime ministerial oath of office Friday night in a ceremony broadcast on a television station loyal to his powerful family.
His supporters said they would appoint a Cabinet Monday even as the fired prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, described the move as a constitutional coup and refused to step down, insisting he had the support of a parliamentary majority.
“Let Parliament decide who should be the prime minister,” Wickremesinghe said at a news conference Saturday.
At the same time, the president, Maithripala Sirisena, issued an order suspending Parliament until Nov. 16. The move appeared designed to give Rajapaksa time to build political support.
“It suggests that they might feel they don’t have the numbers,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo think tank. “But (Rajapaksa) has support with the security forces and law enforcement, and they will try to work on the rest.”
Sri Lankan media published a photo of a senior police official saluting Rajapaksa in his office, sending a message that the former -president had the state’s force on his side.
The shake-up plunged the island nation into its gravest constitutional crisis in 70 years of independence and capped a period of intense political dysfunction after Rajapaksa’s defeat in a 2015 presidential election that was then praised as a triumph of democracy.
Wickremesinghe met later Saturday with diplomats from the United States and other countries at Temple Trees, his official residence in Colombo. He showed no sign of bowing to a threat by Wimal Weerawansa, a lawmaker and top Rajapaksa ally, that if he didn’t vacate the residence by 8 a.m. Sunday, Rajapaksa’s supporters would “take action.”
Rajapaksa amassed power and loyalty from Sri Lanka’s ethnic Sinhalese Buddhist majority during his decade as president. Casting himself as a military hero, he brought a decisive but brutal end to a long civil war with minority Tamil rebels while shrugging off allegations of war crimes and the enforced disappearances of opponents.
But he was widely accused of corruption and of embracing high-interest Chinese loans for pet projects that critics said plunged the country of 20 million into debt.
He was defeated at the polls by Sirisena, a former ally, who took the helm of a coalition government. But Sirisena quickly clashed with Wickremesinghe, and their government has become deeply unpopular for not fulfilling to fulfill most of its promises to investigate graft and wartime abuses.