Emergency declared in Lanka ahead of Parliament vote for new President

By Our Special Correspondent

Sri Lanka's acting president Ranil Wickremesinghe has declared a state of emergency in the crisis-ridden island nation in an effort to quell unrest ahead of a vote in parliament this week to elect a new president.

Wickremesinghe announced the move "in the interest of public safety, protection of public order and maintenance of supplies and services essential to community life," according to a government notice issued late on Sunday.

The government has yet to announce the specific legal provisions of the latest emergency, but previous emergency provisions have been used to arrest and detain people, search private property and deploy the military to quell public protests.

Sri Lanka's embattled leaders have imposed a state of emergency several times since April, when mass protests erupted against the government's handling of the economic crisis and persistent shortages of essential goods.

“Why is he declaring an emergency? Fear of people? Is there an emergency in the country? There is no emergency," constitutional affairs expert Jayamapthi Wickramaratne told Al Jazeera on Monday.

“This is a unilateral move by the Acting President. People in this country have a democratic right to express their demands peacefully to their representatives. Hence, this was Wickramasinghe's attempt to keep people off the streets.

Bhavani Fonseka, senior researcher at the Center for Policy Alternatives, said declaring a state of emergency is becoming the government's default response. "It's proven ineffective in the past," she said.

Rev. one of the leaders of the protest movement. Father Jeevantha Peiris said the declaration of a sudden state of emergency was to scare the agitators.

"We have been protesting peacefully for 100 days, but there is no emergency. So why now?" He told Al Jazeera.

“We see that Ranil Wickramasinghe is gearing up for repression, but our struggle will not be suppressed by these measures. We have a democratic right to protest and will continue our struggle until our final demand is achieved.

Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency last week after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country to escape a popular uprising against his government.

Rajapakse traveled to the Maldives and Singapore after hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets of Colombo and occupied his official residence and offices.

Wickramasinghe was sworn in as the caretaker leader on Friday. He promised to follow the constitution and restore law and order after months of protests over fuel shortages and rising prices of basic commodities.

Sri Lanka's parliament convened on Saturday to begin the process of electing a president for the next five years, as fuel shipments came to bring some relief to the crisis-stricken nation of 22 million people.