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Colombo:
Sri Lanka’s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in on Sunday because the nation’s new prime minister at a historic Buddhist temple, days after his celebration gained a landslide victory within the General Election.
The 74-year-old Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP) chief was administered the oath of workplace for the ninth Parliament by his youthful brother and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on the sacred Rajamaha Viharaya in Kelaniya, a north Colombo suburb.
Mahinda Rajapaksa accomplished 50 years of parliamentary politics in July this 12 months. He was elected as a Member of Parliament on the younger age of 24 in 1970. He has since been elected President twice and has been appointed Prime Minister thrice.
The SLPP, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, registered a landslide victory within the August 5 normal election, securing a two-thirds majority in Parliament wanted to amend the Constitution to additional consolidate the highly effective Rajapaksa household’s grip on energy.
Mahinda Rajapaksa polled over 500,000 particular person choice votes — the very best ever recorded by a candidate within the historical past of elections.
The SLPP gained in 145 constituencies, bagging a complete of 150 seats with its allies, a two-thirds majority within the 225-member Parliament.
The cupboard ministers, state and deputy ministers are anticipated to be sworn-in on Monday.
The Rajapaksa household — together with SLPP founder and its National Organiser 69-year-old Basil Rajapaksa, who’s the youthful brother of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 71, and Mahinda Rajapaksa — has dominated Sri Lankan politics for 20 years.
Mahinda Rajapaksa beforehand served because the president for almost a decade from 2005 to 2015.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had gained the November presidential election on the SLPP ticket.
In the parliamentary election, he was in search of 150 seats necessary to execute constitutional adjustments, together with to repeal the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which had curbed the presidential powers whereas strengthening the function of Parliament.
Activists, already alarmed by the diminishing area for dissent and criticism within the island nation, concern such a transfer might result in authoritarianism.
The largest casualty from the election final result was the United National Party (UNP) of former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe which managed to win just one seat. The nation’s grand previous celebration did not win a single seat from any of the 22 districts.
UNP chief and four-time prime minister Wickremesinghe was unseated for the primary time since he entered Parliament in 1977.
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