Sri Lanka's opposition parties urge president to summon dissolved parliament

Sri Lanka's Opposition parties on Monday urged President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to summon the dissolved parliament while pledging cooperation to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We urge the president to respond positively to this offer of responsible cooperation by us at this critical time and revoke the proclamation dated 2 March 2020 dissolving parliament so that all of us can jointly fight to eradicate this virus," said a joint statement issued by the opposition parties.

President Rajapaksa on March 2 dissolved the Parliament, six months ahead of schedule, and called a snap election on April 25 to elect a new 225-member house.

However, the election commission last week postponed the parliamentary elections by nearly two months to June 20 due to the coronavirus outbreak in the island nation.

The new date clashed with the constitutional imperative that the new parliament has to meet within three months since its dissolution, ie June 2.

The joint statement was signed by United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem, Tamil Progressive Alliance leader Mano Ganesan and All Ceylon Makkal Congress leader Rishard Bathuideen, Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU)'s Patali Champika Ranawaka and former Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa.

The statement followed Rajapaksa's assertion made at a meeting with the powerful Buddhist clergy on April 25 where the president told the monks that he would not at any cost recall the dissolved parliament.

"Getting appropriate and new legislation passed in order to meet the public health crisis and obtaining parliamentary sanction to the utilization of monies from the consolidated fund are some such important and urgent functions of parliament," the statement asserted.

The opposition argues that Rajapaksa has no power to draw public finances after April 30, the date up to which the dismissed parliament had approved expenditure. Therefore, the action to recall parliament would allow the governance proper and lawful in compliance with the constitution.

In a related development, the military announced on Monday that the 120-member police team at the parliamentary complex would be replaced by an army contingent.

The opposition expressed concern over the deployment of army at the parliamentary complex.