Colombo
\nControversial Sri Lankan strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a dramatic political comeback on Friday, becoming the new Prime Minister after President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe who termed the move \u201cunconstitutional\u201d and vowed to prove his majority in Parliament.<\/p>\n
The sudden development came amid growing tensions between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe on several policy matters and the President has been critical of the Prime Minister and his policies, especially on economy and security.<\/p>\n
Rajapaksa, 72, tweeted a photo of him and Sirisena after the swearing-in ceremony at the Presidential Secretariat here.<\/p>\n
Reacting sharply to his sacking, Wickremesinghe asserted that the swearing in of Rajapaksa in his place is \u201cillegal and unconstitutional\u201d and he will prove his majority in Parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will continue to be the Prime Minister. Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s appointment is unconstitutional,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera tweeted that \u201cthe appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister is unconstitutional and illegal. This is an anti-democratic coup\u201d.<\/p>\n
The political developments unfolded after Sirisena\u2019s broader political front United People\u2019s Freedom Alliance announced that it has decided to quit the current unity government with Wickremesinghe\u2019s United National Party .<\/p>\n
Mahinda Amaraweera, Agriculture Minister and the General Secretary of the UPFA, told reporters that the UPFA decision has been conveyed to Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya.<\/p>\n
The unity government was formed in 2015 when Sirisena was elected President with Wickremesinghe\u2019s support, ending a nearly decade-long rule by Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n
Rajapaksa\u2019s return to power ends a more than three-year-old coalition government that was formed by Sirisena and Wickremesinghe on a promise to combat corruption and financial irregularities.<\/p>\n
Sirisena, who was Rajapaksa\u2019s Minister of Health, broke away from him to contest the presidential elections.<\/p>\n
Political analysts said Sirisena\u2019s move to instal Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister could lead to a constitutional crisis as the 19th Amendment to the Constitution would not allow the sacking of Wickremesinghe as the Premier without a majority.<\/p>\n
Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine has only 95 seats and is short of a simple majority. Wickremesinghe\u2019s UNP has 106 seats on its own with just seven short of the majority.<\/p>\n
The unity government was thrown into a crisis after Rajapaksa\u2019s new party pulled off a stunning victory in local elections in February seen as a referendum on the ruling alliance.<\/p>\n
Last week, it was reported that Sirisena accused his senior coalition partner the UNP of not taking seriously an alleged conspiracy to assassinate him and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the former top Defence Ministry bureaucrat and brother of ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colombo Controversial Sri Lankan strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a dramatic political comeback on Friday, becoming the new Prime Minister after President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe who termed the move \u201cunconstitutional\u201d and vowed to prove his majority in Parliament. The sudden development came amid growing tensions between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe on several policy matters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45557,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45555\/revisions\/45557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}