Sept 24 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has dissolved parliament to clear the way for a snap general election in the debt-ridden country, he said in a government gazette notification on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parliamentary election will be held on Nov. 14, the notification said, adding that the next parliament would convene on Nov. 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last general election in Sri Lanka was held in August 2020. Lawmakers are elected for a five-year term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sri Lankans chose Dissanayake in a weekend presidential election, giving the Marxist-leaning politician a key role in deciding the future of reforms in the island country that is slowly emerging from a crushing financial crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But his coalition, the National People’s Party, has just three of 225 seats in the current parliament, prompting him to dissolve the legislature to seek a fresh mandate there for his policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saturday’s presidential vote was Sri Lanka’s first election since its economy buckled in 2022 under a severe foreign exchange shortage, leaving it unable to pay for imports of essentials including fuel, medicine and cooking gas. Protests forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and later resign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dissanayake promised to bring change for those reeling under austerity measures linked to a $2.9 billion IMF bailout programme following the economic crisis and has also pledged to expand existing welfare schemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But his intentions to slash taxes and desire to revisit the terms of the bailout have worried investors, who fear that it could delay a crucial $25 billion debt restructuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He will have to ensure the economy returns to sustainable and inclusive growth, reassure local and international markets, attract investors and help a quarter of the 22 million population climb out of poverty.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sept 24 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has dissolved parliament to clear the way for a snap general election in the debt-ridden country, he said in a government gazette notification on Tuesday. The parliamentary election will be held on Nov. 14, the notification said, adding that the next parliament would […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":8697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,342],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}