Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has dissolved a parliament loyal to his predecessor and called fresh elections for August in an attempt to consolidate his power and carry out his promise of reforms.
Sirisena issued the notice on midnight on Friday, announcing the election for the 225-member parliament for Aug. 17.
Sirisena won the January presidential election against Mahinda Rajapaksa on a pledge of full-scale political reforms, but has faced resistance from lawmakers in implementing his program.
Photo: AP
It includes reducing powers of the presidency and changes to the electoral system.
The majority of the lawmakers in the dissolved parliament belonged to the United People’s Freedom Alliance, which Rajapaksa led until his defeat.
Sirisena is also keen to secure cooperation of a new parliament ahead of an internal investigation into war crimes allegations in the final stages of the nation’s civil war.
In March, Sirisena secured the postponement of a UN report on the alleged atrocities by promising a domestic investigation. The UN high commissioner for human rights is expected to release the report in September.
Calling an election ahead of the report is also an apparent bid to deny Rajapaksa an opportunity to come back to power by stirring up nationalism.
Rajapaksa is still popular with the nation’s majority Sinhalese, who oppose international involvement in Sri Lanka. He is also considered a war hero among Sinhalese for ending a three-decade civil war in 2009.
The conflict ended after government troops crushed the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels, who fought for a separate state for the ethnic minority Tamils.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including