Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed Sri Lankan PM: Present scenario is a setback to path of unity for the country
FirstpostThe President of Sri Lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on Friday. Therefore, once again, the Tamil political parties may play a role in reinstating Wickremesinghe as prime minister if he has to prove his majority in Parliament, or the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka might step in to determine the constitutional validity of actions by the president. Despite the arguments and counter-arguments about the constitutional validity of appointing Rajapaksa as prime minister, internal developments indicate that Sri Lanka is once again plunged into a political crisis that can threaten the relative peace and the stability the country witnessed in the last three and half years of unity government formed with the support of Tamil political alliance, the Tamil National Alliance. By removing Wickremesinghe as prime minister, the moderate gains achieved in the last three years, by raising the trust of the Sri Lankan Tamil community on the State in implementing reconciliation measures in post-war Sri Lanka, may wither away. Within the Sri Lankan Tamil political parties, there is no unity on approach towards reconciliation, and expectations from the Sri Lankan State also vary.