According to the country’s poll panel, Sri Lanka will have to shell out more than what it spent in the 2020 polls to conduct the elections this time around.
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New Delhi: Sri Lanka, which is already reeling under the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, will have to shell out more than Rs 5.7 billion to conduct fresh elections in the island nation, according to the country’s Election Commission.
An Election Commission official said that the country will have to spend more than what it spent in the 2020 elections.
“In the last General Election in August 2020, we spent Rs 5.7 billion, so the budget would increase if we were to hold an election soon. Our costs are mostly allocated to the Ceylon Electricity Board, allowances for staff, the Sri Lanka Post, the Police, and printing costs,” The Morning quoted an Election Commission official as saying.
The official said that according to the Constitution, a sitting president can only dissolve the current Parliament if he has held the office for at least two-and-a-half years.
“This Parliament started in August 2020, so it can only be dissolved by the President in March 2023,” added the official.
Sri Lanka’s Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena in a statement had earlier announced that parliament will reconvene on July 15 and a new president will be elected on 20 July.
According to a Daily Mirror report, Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa signed his resignation letter on Monday and the Speaker will publicly announce it to the nation on 13 July.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is under the grip of an economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and other essentials.
Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in recent months, calling for the country’s leaders to resign over accusations of economic mismanagement. They blame the Gotabaya Rajapaksa family for the crisis.
Schools have been suspended and fuel has been limited to essential services. Patients are unable to travel to hospitals due to the fuel shortage and food prices are soaring.
In several major cities, including Colombo, hundreds are forced to stand in line for hours to buy fuel, sometimes clashing with police and the military as they wait.
The country, with an acute foreign currency crisis that resulted in foreign debt default, had announced in April that it is suspending nearly $7 billion foreign debt repayment due for this year out of about $25 billion due through 2026. Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt stands at $51 billion.
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