President Rajapaksa Calls Early Sri Lanka Parliamentary Election

(Bloomberg) -- Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa called for early parliamentary elections in order to consolidate power and push forward his agenda to revive the South Asian economy.

In a gazette listed for publication on the department of government printing website, Rajapaksa has ordered the dissolution of parliament as of midnight Monday, which he is constitutionally allowed to do, now that the 225-member chamber had completed 4 1/2 of its five-year tenure.

The snap election was likely to be held on April 25, state-run Independent Television Network said citing an unnamed source at the Elections Commission.

Rajapaksa has been running a minority government since winning the November presidential poll and appointing his brother, former strongman leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, as the prime minister.

Powerful Brothers Wrest Control of Sri Lanka's Two Top Jobs

He has said the presidency needed to reclaim many of the executive powers that had been clipped by an amendment to the constitution brought under former Prime Minister Ranil Wickresinghe's United National Party government.

The Rajapaksas, who leaned more toward China during Mahinda's decade in power as president which ended in 2015, want to win a 2/3 majority in the parliamentary polls, which would allow them to push through new constitutional changes.

Gotabaya, who was defense secretary under Mahinda and led the campaign in defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009, has the backing of the majority Sinhala-Buddhist population, even as the minority Tamils and Muslims supported the UNP candidate Sajith Premadasa in the presidential polls.

Shortly after his victory, Gotabaya announced tax cuts and a moratorium on debt for small-scale businesses in order to kickstart the economy that had been battered by political turmoil since late 2018 and last year's Easter Sunday terror attacks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anusha Ondaatjie in Colombo at anushao@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Muneeza Naqvi, Richard Bravo

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.