UN chief Antonio Guterres has expressed concern over Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s decision to dissolve the nation\u2019s Parliament, underlining the \u201cutmost importance\u201d of respecting democratic processes and resolving differences in accordance with the rule of law.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka\u2019s political crisis deepened Friday as President Sirisena dissolved the Parliament and announced snap polls on January 5 after it became evident that he did not have enough support in the House for Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed by him under controversial circumstances.<\/p>\n
The Secretary-General \u201clearned with concern\u201d Sirisena\u2019s decision to dissolve Sri Lanka\u2019s parliament and move to new parliamentary elections, a statement issued on Saturday by Secretary-General Guterres\u2019 Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said.<\/p>\n
Guterres underlined the \u201cutmost importance of respecting democratic processes and institutions and resolving differences in accordance with the rule of law and due process.\u201d<\/p>\n
He renewed his call on the Sri Lankan government to ensure peace and safety for all the countrymen and uphold its commitments to human rights, justice and reconciliation.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka was plunged into a political crisis after Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on October 26 and replaced him with former president Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n
Wickremesinghe, who dubbed the move as a \u201cconstitutional coup\u201d, has refused to vacate his official residence, saying he is the lawful prime minister and that the president has no constitutional right to replace him.<\/p>\n
Amid the ongoing political tensions in Sri Lanka, Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka Hanaa Singer last month met the Speaker of Parliament Karu Jayasuriya stressing Guterres\u2019 message for the need to respect democratic values and constitutional provisions.<\/p>\n
Guterres earlier said he was following Sri Lanka\u2019s deepening political crisis with \u201cgreat concern\u201d and called on the nation\u2019s government to respect democratic values and constitutional process.<\/p>\n
President Sirisena signed a gazette notification to dissolve the nation\u2019s parliament with effect from Friday midnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UN chief Antonio Guterres has expressed concern over Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s decision to dissolve the nation\u2019s Parliament, underlining the \u201cutmost importance\u201d of respecting democratic processes and resolving differences in accordance with the rule of law. Sri Lanka\u2019s political crisis deepened Friday as President Sirisena dissolved the Parliament and announced snap polls on January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46974","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\/46974","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=46974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46976,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46974\/revisions\/46976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}