Sri Lanka elections: PM Mahinda Rajapaksa signs nomination papers to contest polls
Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Sri Lanka Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Wednesday said that he had signed the nomination papers to contest the upcoming general elections from Kurunegala District.
Rajapaksa further said that his Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, a newly formed party that backed country's President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa during the mid-November presidential elections in 2019 will form a strong government and action the party's manifesto for a better future for all Sri Lankan’s.
The island nation's President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa dissolved the Parliament on March 3, paving the way for snap elections in the country months ahead of the schedule.
President Rajapaksa in December named his elder brother and former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa as the prime minister of the caretaker cabinet until the general election in August 2020.
The current parliament was appointed on September 1, 2015.
The Lankan president had earlier said he wanted two-thirds parliamentary strength- 150 seats in the 225-member assembly.
Among the Rajapaksa reforms post election are the abolition of 19A.