COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s president suspended Parliament until Feb 8, when he said he would announced a new set of long-term policies to address a range of issues including an unprecedented economic crisis that has engulfed the Indian Ocean nation for months.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe issued an extraordinary decree suspending Parliament from midnight Friday.
The government did not give a clear reason for the move, but Wickremesinghe’ s office in a statement said his address to lawmakers on Feb. 8 will announce new policies and laws, which will be implemented until the centenary celebrations of Sri Lanka’s independence in 2048.
It is also widely expected that Wickremesinghe would announce his policies on sharing power with ethnic minority Tamils.
A civil war between the majority Sinhala-controlled Sri Lankan government and ethnic Tamil rebels killed at least 100,000 people, according to UN conservative calculations, before it ended with the rebels’ defeat in 2009.
Political analyst Jehan Perera said the president’s move to suspend Parliament is “to show that he is the authority.”