<p>Colombo: Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has scheduled the inaugural session of the newly elected parliament for next week, after Thursday's parliamentary election.</p>.<p>Sri Lanka is set to hold on Thursday its snap parliamentary election - first after the 2022 economic crisis - amid deployment of nearly 90,000 security personnel across the country.</p>.<p>As per tradition, the initial session of the newly elected parliament will focus on electing the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, and the Deputy Chairman of Committees.</p>.<p>“I, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, do by this proclamation summon parliament to meet at the chamber of parliament, on the twenty first day of November 2024 at 10.00 am,” a government gazette stated on Tuesday.</p>.Sri Lanka to vote in crucial Parliament polls on November 14.<p>The parliamentary election will result in a new parliament of 225 members -- 196 representatives elected from 22 electoral districts and an additional 29 selected from a national list based on each party’s overall vote share.</p>.<p>Voting will take place at over 13,314 polling stations across the country, from 7 am to 4 pm local time with over 17 million voters from the island’s 21 million population eligible to vote for the 225-member parliament for a five-year term.</p>.<p>The election would be the first major test of the popularity of the ruling party, National People's Power (NPP), led by President Dissanayake.</p>.<p>Having failed to secure 50 per cent of the vote at the September 21 presidential election, Dissanayake is pleading for a stronger parliament with well over a simple majority of 113 seats in order to implement his anti-corruption accountability reformist programme.</p>.<p>Dissanayake in September dissolved parliament, almost a year ahead of the scheduled closure in August 2025.</p>.<p>The NPP coalition is seeking parliamentary support for sweeping social reforms, positioning itself as a break from the governance model that has dominated Sri Lanka since gaining independence from Britain in 1948.</p>.<p>This will be the first parliamentary election since Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis when the island nation declared sovereign default in mid-April of 2022, its first since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. Almost civil-war-like conditions and months of public protests led to the fleeing of the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.</p>.<p>Dissanayake’s victory in the September presidential election marked a historic achievement for the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the founding party of the NPP, as it became the first electoral win for the party since its establishment in 1965. Known for leading uprisings in 1971 and 1987, the JVP shifted to a democratic platform in 1994 and has since pursued political reform within Sri Lanka's democratic framework, despite multiple electoral challenges.</p>
<p>Colombo: Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has scheduled the inaugural session of the newly elected parliament for next week, after Thursday's parliamentary election.</p>.<p>Sri Lanka is set to hold on Thursday its snap parliamentary election - first after the 2022 economic crisis - amid deployment of nearly 90,000 security personnel across the country.</p>.<p>As per tradition, the initial session of the newly elected parliament will focus on electing the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, and the Deputy Chairman of Committees.</p>.<p>“I, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, do by this proclamation summon parliament to meet at the chamber of parliament, on the twenty first day of November 2024 at 10.00 am,” a government gazette stated on Tuesday.</p>.Sri Lanka to vote in crucial Parliament polls on November 14.<p>The parliamentary election will result in a new parliament of 225 members -- 196 representatives elected from 22 electoral districts and an additional 29 selected from a national list based on each party’s overall vote share.</p>.<p>Voting will take place at over 13,314 polling stations across the country, from 7 am to 4 pm local time with over 17 million voters from the island’s 21 million population eligible to vote for the 225-member parliament for a five-year term.</p>.<p>The election would be the first major test of the popularity of the ruling party, National People's Power (NPP), led by President Dissanayake.</p>.<p>Having failed to secure 50 per cent of the vote at the September 21 presidential election, Dissanayake is pleading for a stronger parliament with well over a simple majority of 113 seats in order to implement his anti-corruption accountability reformist programme.</p>.<p>Dissanayake in September dissolved parliament, almost a year ahead of the scheduled closure in August 2025.</p>.<p>The NPP coalition is seeking parliamentary support for sweeping social reforms, positioning itself as a break from the governance model that has dominated Sri Lanka since gaining independence from Britain in 1948.</p>.<p>This will be the first parliamentary election since Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis when the island nation declared sovereign default in mid-April of 2022, its first since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. Almost civil-war-like conditions and months of public protests led to the fleeing of the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.</p>.<p>Dissanayake’s victory in the September presidential election marked a historic achievement for the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the founding party of the NPP, as it became the first electoral win for the party since its establishment in 1965. Known for leading uprisings in 1971 and 1987, the JVP shifted to a democratic platform in 1994 and has since pursued political reform within Sri Lanka's democratic framework, despite multiple electoral challenges.</p>