Sri Lanka's Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya (2nd R) attends a meeting with political party legislators at the parliament in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Nov. 2, 2018. Sri Lanka's Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya on Friday informed lawmakers that President Maithripala Sirisena was likely to convene parliament next week. (Xinhua/Ajith Perera)
COLOMBO, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya on Friday informed lawmakers that President Maithripala Sirisena was likely to convene parliament next week.
Jayasuriya, in a meeting with political party legislators, said President Sirisena had in a telephone conversation informed him that parliament would convene on Nov. 7 and a gazette notification would be issued either Friday or Saturday.
President Sirisena last Saturday prorogued parliament till Nov. 16.
Parliamentarians, including ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, have urged for an urgent parliamentary session, to identify which party held the majority in the House.
Newly appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, who was sworn in last Friday after the president sacked Wickremesinghe, told journalists on Thursday that President Sirisena had informed him that the parliament would convene on Nov. 5 in order to settle the ongoing political crisis.
A government official told Xinhua that President Sirisena had also informed this decision to the new foreign envoys who presented their credentials to him on Thursday afternoon.
However, on Thursday evening, General Secretary of the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Susil Premajayantha told journalists that no such announcement had been made by the president and parliament would convene as announced on Nov. 16.
President Sirisena is the leader of the UPFA.
Premajayantha said that parliament needed time to prepare to meet and there was not enough time to meet on Nov. 5.
However, there has been no statement from President Sirisena or Prime Minister Rajapakse since then.
A political crisis erupted in Sri Lanka last Friday when President Sirisena, in a shocking move, dissolved cabinet and sacked Wickremesinghe and appointed former President Rajapakse as the new prime minister.
Wickremesinghe and his party have maintained that the move was illegal as they still held a majority in the House.
Sirisena has formed a new cabinet since then with several ministers, state and deputy ministers already sworn in.
