Sri Lankan President revokes state of emergency amid widespread protests

Colombo, Apr 06: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa late on Tuesday revoked the emergency rule ordinance that had gone into effect on April 1, amid widespread protests following the nation's worst economic crisis in decades.

In a Gazette notification, Rajapaksa said the emergency rule ordinance would stand revoked as of midnight on April 5.

Trouble for the Mahinda Rajapaksa government mounted with at least 12 of his MPs deciding to sit as an independent group.

This would mean that the Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa would need to invite any other party to prove majority of 113 in the 225 member parliament.

In the 225 member Sri Lankan parliament, the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna had 117 member and its allies 15. The coalition partner 10 Party Alliance had 14 members.

The opposition SJB has 54 members- TNA with ten and others with 15. After the defections, the ruling party's strength has decreased to 105, while the dissidents including those from the ruling party has gone up to 41. The numbers are only likely to increase.

On the other hand an offer by the president of a unity government was rejected by the opposition. This development came in the wake of all the ministers from the Cabinet tendering their resignations to the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Massive protests have spread across the country of 22 million despite the emergency laws allowing troops to detain participants and a weekend curfew that lapsed on Monday.