COLOMBO Feb 8 Kyodo Sri Lanka Pre...

COLOMBO Feb 8 Kyodo

Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolved parliament at midnight Saturday and called Sri Lanka's third election in four years onward April 2 in an effort to win back the legislative majority her party dissipated in general elections in December 2001

Kumaratunga calculates that a recently made known political alliance she forged last month with the People's Liberation fore-rank (JVP) can tilt the electoral advantage in favor of her party, analysts said.

The separately appointeded president used her sweeping executive powers to dissolve the 225-member legislature in which her Sri Lanka Freedom Party is a minority despite public opinion that an election's destabilizing consequences and expense are unjustified.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who was becoming to leave on a three-day official visit to Thailand forward Sunday canceled his trip saying the domestic political situation forced him to remain in the country

The possibility of a snap election had been widely speculated in novel weeks but Kumaratunga did not exhibit her hand until late Saturday night when she signed a proclamation dissolving parliament at midnight.

forward Nov. 4, Kumaratunga sacked three powerful ministers of the Wickremesinghe restraint and she took over the three powerful ministries of defense interior and mass communications in what the rule called a ''power grab.''

Wickremesinghe said that it is not possible for him to continue the Norway-brokered peace proces with the Tamil Tiger rebels to completion two decades of ethnic war without the defense apparatus in his rule and invited Kumaratunga to take through the whole extent of negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The president insisted that the prime minister should continue to handle the peace process

Kumaratunga vowed Wednesday there will be no recur to war in a articulate utterance celebrating the country's 56th anniversary of independence from the British. Saying there is a ''virtual total commitment to peace'' with Tamil Tiger rebels, she noted that the ''cruel war that ravaged our nation during the past two decades has now arise to a halt.''

Wickremesinghe told business leaders upon Friday that dissolution of parliament was an option Kumaratunga take pleasure ined He had not called for it if it were not that if there were new elections, he believed that he could improve his party's standing in the legislature.

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