President Anura Kumara Dissanayake picks a 21-member cupboard as he plans sweeping reforms, together with a marketing campaign promise of a brand new structure.
Sri Lanka’s Marxist-leaning President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has reappointed educationist Harini Amarasuriya because the nation’s prime minister after sweeping the snap parliamentary elections final week.
Dissanayake on Monday picked a 21-member cupboard, retaining the important thing defence and finance portfolios as he plans sweeping reforms, together with a marketing campaign promise of a brand new structure, and to battle corruption in a nation recovering from its worst financial disaster.
A nation of twenty-two million, Sri Lanka was crushed by the disaster triggered by a extreme scarcity of international forex that pushed it right into a sovereign default and brought on its financial system to shrink by 7.3 p.c in 2022 and a couple of.3 p.c final 12 months. The nation has been present process a monetary programme by the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) following the default.
The swearing-in ceremony of the brand new cupboard, which was telecast reside, befell on the Presidential Secretariat within the capital, Colombo.
Amarasuriya, 54, will even maintain the ministries of training, greater training in addition to vocational coaching. She was first appointed because the prime minister in September to serve within the interim authorities after Dissanayake received the presidential election, making her the primary lady to go the nationwide authorities in 24 years.
Veteran legislator Vijitha Herath has been appointed the international minister. Ananda Wijepala is the brand new public safety and parliamentary affairs minister, whereas Bimal Rathnayake has been tapped as transport, highways, ports and civil aviation minister.
A political outsider in a rustic dominated by household events for many years, Dissanayake’s left-leaning Nationwide Individuals’s Energy (NPP) coalition had simply three seats in parliament, prompting him to dissolve it and search a brand new mandate in final week’s vote.
The NPP received a landslide majority in Thursday’s parliamentary election, securing 159 seats within the 225-member home – representing a cushty two-thirds majority. The principle opposition, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), beneath its chief Sajith Premadasa, received simply 40 seats.
It was the primary time since 1977 – when Sri Lanka modified its parliamentary system to proportional illustration – {that a} single get together has received a transparent majority. It is usually the primary time the incumbent president has the numbers wanted to cross laws in parliament without having to depend on any allies or coalition companions.
With a two-thirds majority, Dissanayake, 55, can now amend the structure. The NPP had promised a referendum on a brand new structure.
“We should be certain that this absolute energy doesn’t corrupt us completely,” Dissanayake instructed on the swearing-in ceremony.
“This large energy that has been given to us have to be exercised with accountability, to fulfil the aspirations of the individuals who had been oppressed economically and politically for too lengthy.”
The brand new authorities holds its first parliamentary sitting on Thursday. It’s anticipated to arrange a funds for 2025 consistent with the continuing IMF bailout secured by the earlier authorities. An IMF delegation is on a weeklong journey to the island nation to carry talks with the brand new authorities in addition to conduct a 3rd evaluation of Sri Lanka’s financial reform programme of $2.9bn.