Crisis In Colombo

President Maithripala Sirisena stunned the Island nation by sacking his PM, suspending parliament and bringing back a Pro-China leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka is in political turmoil

- Namini Wijedasa

On the afternoon of October 26, parliamentarians from President Maithripala Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) gathered at his official residence. They did not know the meeting would be a precursor to one of the most tangled constitutional debates in the country’s history.

Sirisena told them he was forming a new administration. He ordered a party official to give notice that the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which includes the SLFP, is quitting the government. He then summoned his most bitter adversary, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to the venue and swore him in as Sri Lanka’s 16th prime minister. It was over in four hours.

Even supporters of Rajapaksa, the former president who had defeated the Tamil Tigers and was now an ordinary member of parliament, were baffled. What just happened? Today, for all intents and purposes, Sri Lanka has two prime ministers: Ranil Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa. And until questions of law, constitutionality and parliamentary majority are unsnarled in one or both of two forums—the legislature and the Supreme Court—the status quo could continue.

The stalemate, involving some of the most senior politicians in power, is ugly and divisive, with betrayal thrown into the festering mix. Sirisena only won the presidency in January 2015 because diverse groups led by Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) fielded him. He had defected from Rajapaksa’s authoritarian government to contest, and hid away in a coconut estate on election night till the results confirmed his victory.