Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was re-elected just two weeks ago, has dissolved parliament and called early elections.
The move follows the heavy handed arrest on Monday of leading opposition figure, former general Sarath Fonseka, for alleged military offences. He lost the bitter presidential election battle to the president on 26 January.
President Rajapaksa says the early poll is designed to increase the number of seats held by his Freedom Alliance and reinforce his grip on parliament. The election was planned for April, but the electoral commission will now have to schedule an earlier date.
Members of Sri Lanka's opposition say the government has begun a witch-hunt targetting General Fonseka's supporters. Since the president's re-election, 37 of the former general's staff, including senior army officers, have been arrested. They are accused of plotting against the state.
General Fonseka worked closely with President Rajapaksa to defeat the Tamil Tigers last May, bringing the rebels' 25-year struggle for independence to an end. Both men claim to be responsible for the victory.
Mahinda Rajapaksa
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Parliamentary elections will be a cakewalk for Rajapakse., Sri Lanka is succesfully made a leaderless opposition.
This is the latest in a series of ugly developments in Sri Lanka which, over the last three or four years as the country has slid to an authoritarian state under the chauvinist Rajapakse presidency. As with similar deals with African states, people’s Democratic Dictatorship of China is actively bankrolling the emergence of a new “People’s dictatorship” in Colombo that highlights the increasingly malign influence of China in global affairs.
Efforts to get a UN investigation into allegations of war crimes in the recent conflict are blocked by China and Sri Lanka’s other new friend, Russia which is in talks about a USD$300m arms deal with Colombo. For good measure China’s ally Iran is providing more soft loans and cheap oil.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100025491/chinas-malign-in...
Perhaps this latest political ugliness will be the moment when the world really wakes up to what’s happening in Sri Lanka