Chilli powder thrown as Lankan MPs brawl again

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka´s political crisis escalated Friday with police having to escort the speaker into parliament and MPs throwing chilli powder and furniture at rivals.

The Indian Ocean nation has been paralysed since October 26 when President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe as premier and replaced him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse.

On Friday speaker Karu Jayasuriya was blocked from taking his chair for almost an hour by a group of legislators backing Rajapakse. Finally, Jayasuriya entered the red-carpeted chamber protected by dozens of unarmed officers and parliamentary staff. Rioting MPs took away the ceremonial chair, but staff carried in an ordinary office chair as a makeshift replacement.

However, rioters grabbed that chair too, breaking it into pieces that were then used as projectiles to attack rivals and police. A former parliament staffer said Friday´s scenes were unprecedented.

"We haven´t had a situation where the speaker was prevented from entering the chamber," former sergeant-at-arms Wijaya Palliyaguruge told AFP. "This is also the first time that the speaker had to come in with police protection."

The British High Commissioner (ambassador) James Dauris echoed international concern over violence in Sri Lanka´s parliament, a legacy from British colonial rule that ended in 1948.

"Sri Lankans have again seen deplorable behaviour by some MPs, unbecoming of them and of their noble institution," Dauris said on Twitter. "No parliament can perform its role when its own members stop it from doing so."

Standing in a corner with a human shield of khaki-clad constables, the speaker, in his usual black and gold robes, used a wireless microphone to take a voice vote on a revised no-confidence motion against Rajapakse.

Rajapakse lost a similar vote on Wednesday, but refused to step down saying that vote was not taken properly. His party had acknowledged that they did not command a majority in the 225-member assembly despite attempts to engineer defections.