Colombo Jan 28 (BNA): Sri Lanka’s president suspended parliament until Feb 8, when he said he would announce a new set of long-term policies to tackle a range of issues including the unprecedented economic crisis that has gripped the Indian Ocean nation. for months.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe issued an extraordinary decree suspending parliament from midnight on Friday.
The government has not given a clear reason for the move, but Wickremesinghe’s office said in a statement that his address to lawmakers on February 8 will announce new policies and laws, which will be implemented until the centenary of Sri Lanka’s independence in 2048. According to the Associated Press (AP).
Wickremesinghe is widely expected to announce his power-sharing policies with the ethnic Tamil minority. The civil war between Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese-dominated government and ethnic Tamil rebels killed at least 100,000 people, according to conservative UN calculations, before ending with the rebels’ defeat in 2009.
Political analyst Jehan Pereira said the president’s move to suspend parliament was “to show that he is the authority”.
He said the suspension also “symbolizes a new beginning” where the president has the opportunity to “announce all the new things that are going to be done”.
Unsustainable debt, and an acute balance of payments crisis on top of the lingering scars of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to severe shortages of essentials such as fuel, medicine, and food. The high prices sparked mass protests last year that toppled Wickremesinghe’s predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Although there have been some signs of progress, daily power outages have persisted due to fuel shortages and the government is struggling to find funds to pay its employees and perform other administrative jobs.
There has been growing public discontent with the government’s recent move to increase taxes and electricity bills in an apparent bid to secure a bailout package from the International Monetary Fund.
Sri Lanka is virtually bankrupt and has suspended nearly $7 billion in external debt due this year pending the outcome of talks with the International Monetary Fund. The country’s total external debt exceeds $51 billion, of which $28 billion must be repaid by 2027.
The government has announced 6% cuts to every ministry’s budgets this year and plans to roughly halve the size of the army, which has swelled to more than 200,000 personnel due to a protracted civil war.
While Parliament is suspended, the Speaker of Parliament continues to serve and the legislators keep their seats even though they have not attended any sessions.
HF