Legal Challenge As Sri Lankan Political Turmoil Deepens

Sri Lanka's largest party announced Saturday a legal challenge to President Maithripala Sirisena's sacking of parliament, a move that has plunged the Indian Ocean island nation into fresh turmoil and alarmed the international community.

Colombo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Nov, 2018 ) :Sri Lanka's largest party announced Saturday a legal challenge to President Maithripala Sirisena's sacking of parliament, a move that has plunged the Indian Ocean island nation into fresh turmoil and alarmed the international community.

Sirisena announced on Friday night that he was dissolving parliament and called fresh elections on January 5, two weeks after sacking prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replacing him with the controversial Mahinda Rajapakse.

Mangala Samaraweera, finance minister in Wickremesinghe's sacked cabinet, said Saturday that their United National Party (UNP) would file a challenge with Sri Lanka's top court next week, saying the president had "kicked the constitution in the teeth".

"We will go to the courts," Samaraweera told reporters in Colombo. "We will fight in the courts, we will fight in parliament and we will fight at the polls."