Officials said on Friday that Sri Lanka’s new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had sworn in a 15-member cabinet of ministers.
The president’s brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, was sworn in as finance and economic affairs minister.
Senior politician Dinesh Gunawardena was sworn in as minister of foreign relations.
The defence portfolio was not assigned to any of the ministers, but a state minister was expected to be put in charge of the subject.
Usually the defence ministry is held by the president, but constitutional amendments introduced in the previous government prevent the president from taking over any ministries.
Constitutionally the president can appoint 30 cabinet ministers but he has restricted it to 15 in view of parliamentary elections which will be due in 2019.
President Rajapaksa said “we have limited the cabinet to 15 as this is only an interim government.’’
The new cabinet was sworn in after Rajapaksa Gotabaya’s victory in the Nov. 16 presidential elections.
Rajapaksa, who ran for the Sri Lanka Podujana Party (Peoples’Party), received 52.25 per cent of the vote, against Sajith Premadasa of the New Democratic Front alliance who received 41.99 per cent of the vote.
The president holds the powers to dissolve Parliament after March 2019 and call for early elections.
However, if both the ruling party and the opposition agree to approve a resolution by a two-thirds majority in the 225-seat Parliament, elections could be called even earlier than March 2020.
