Sri Lanka's new parliament convened, speaker and others elected

Colombo: The new parliament of Sri Lanka was convened on Thursday for the first session after the ruling NPP’s historic electoral landslide victory a week ago.

At the start of the new session of the 10th parliament since 1978, the National People’s Power's (NPP) Ashoka Ranwala was elected house speaker while Rizwie Salih was elected deputy speaker.

Himali Weerasekera, a female member, was elected the deputy chairman of the committee.

The significant feature in the appointment was that all three elected to the high offices are first time members of parliament, which is an unprecedented occurrence in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary history.

Speaker Ranwala, a chemical engineer, represents the NPP elevation to the highest office through decades of public agitations. He was a trade union leader in the state fuel entity, CPC and organisation often hit by leftist trade union activism.

The NPP created history in the November 14 election by winning 159 seats in the 225 member assembly and a majority elected from both government and opposition are first time members.

This represents the first time that a government had won two-thirds control or over 150 seats in a parliamentary election held since 1989.

After the ceremonial appointments of the three parliamentary appointments, an announcement was made that Sajith Premadasa from the main opposition has been recognised as the opposition leader.

The House was then adjourned in order to be reconvened so that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake could present his policy statement.

The president is constitutionally empowered to chair the opening sessions of the assembly.