Former President Mohamed Nasheed has expressed concern over the ongoing political crisis in neighbouring Sri Lanka.
In a tweet on Saturday, Nasheed said it is ‘heartbreaking’ to see Sri Lanka in such a predicament.
As a new dawn breaks in the Maldives, it’s heartbreaking to see Sri Lanka in such difficulty. I hope Sri Lanka will soon come out of this predicament. Sri Lankans are like our cousins, and Maldivians celebrate today only because of Sri Lanka’s help and support
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena had in October replaced Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has a signifant base of supporters, with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who claims credit for ending the country's civil war and is accused of war crimes against civillians.
Sirsena said that he dismissed the Prime Minister for conspiring a plot to assassinate him. Sirisena had then suspended parliament before a vote to verify Rajapaksa’s appointment, and then dissolved the legislature entirely.
Sri Lanka’s apex court had reversed this decision and parliamentarians had rejected Rajapaksa’s appointment upon reconvening.
The rivalry between prime ministers and Sirisena’s undermining of the country’s democratic mechanisms have caused a ‘political catastrophe’, critics say.
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