In a letter that he sent to members of parliament, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe extended an invitation for them to participate in the formation of an all-party national administration to assist the bankrupt nation in recovering from the greatest economic catastrophe.
The political and social unrest that has been caused b the current economic crisis that the nation is going through today is the direct result of the government’s current efforts, which consist of significant efforts to gradually restore normalcy to the situation “said Wickremesinghe in the letter that was sent out on Friday.
“In light of this, preparatory plans necessary to execute a systematic economic programme are now being prepared, and preliminary actions for the development of economic stability are also currently being conducted, he said.
Wickremesinghe said that the only way for a programme to be put into action was for all of the political parties that are now represented in Parliament, together with expert organisations and members of civil society.
In addition to this, he put out the idea of initiating a conversation with the various parties involved on the restoration of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
The 19A constitutional amendment, which was passed in 2015, reduced the executive president’s power by giving more authority to Parliament.
In 2015, Wickremesinghe was the primary proponent and sponsor of the 19th Amendment. On the other hand, once Gotabaya Rajapaksa was victorious in the presidential election in November 2019, the 19A was discarded.
On July 20, members of parliament in Sri Lanka elected Ranil Wickremesinghe to be the new president of the country. The majority of votes for Wickremesinghe came from lawmakers representing the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, which was previously led by the deposed President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
There were just two parliamentarians from parties other than the SLPP named to the Cabinet on Friday. According to the constitution, the number of members of the Cabinet may be increased to a maximum of thirty.
The current President, who is 73 years old, was selected to serve out the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term after he left the country, first to the Maldives and subsequently to Singapore.
It is said that Rajapaksa has shown poor management of the ongoing economic crisis, which is the worse since 1948.
In the middle of May, Rajapaksa made Wickremesinghe the new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. He was charged with restarting the economy by providing early remedies to difficulties with gasoline, cooking gas, and electricity shortages, which sparked widespread protests against Rajapaksa. He was unsuccessful in this endeavour.
Midway through April, the government made the decision to declare bankruptcy by not honouring its foreign financial obligations.
