Sri Lanka grinds to political halt amid parliamentary chaos

Parliament passed the no-confidence motion against recently appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government on Wednesday, with the backing of 122 lawmakers from the 225-member legislature in a voice vote followed by a signed document.

But President Maithripala Sirisena, in a letter to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, said he could not accept the no-confidence vote as it appeared to have ignored the constitution, parliamentary procedure and tradition.

“We expect the Speaker to be an independent speaker and not a close friend of your party or the West,” Rajapaksa told parliament. “We want a general election.”

He also alleged the previous government led by ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s was corrupt.

Sirisena, who triggered the crisis by firing Wickremesinghe and naming Rajapaksa to the job late last month, dissolved parliament last week and ordered elections as a way to break the deadlock.

But the Supreme Court ordered a suspension of that decree on Tuesday until it had heard petitions challenging the move as unconstitutional.

Soon after his speech, Rajapaksa’s supporters poured on to the floor of parliament and disrupted proceedings.

After a meeting with party leaders, the Speaker agreed to convene the next parliament session on Wednesday, media reported.

Mahinda Samarasinghe, a Rajapaksa supporter, criticized the Speaker for inviting foreign envoys to witness the proceedings, saying he was trying to destroy the perception of parliament.

Rajapaksa, under whose rule Sri Lanka achieved its 2009 victory in a decades-long conflict against rebels from the Tamil minority, is seen as a hero by many among Sri Lanka’s Buddhist majority. He has been accused by diplomats of human rights abuses during the war, which he denies.