Newly-elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa stated that he will seek a snap parliamentary election “at the earliest opportunity”, in the wake of his resounding victory at Sri Lanka’s presidential polls last week. 

Though Sri Lanka's existing parliamentary term ends next August, the constitution allows the president to dissolve the legislature and push for an election as early as March 2020.

Following Sri Lanka’s presidential elections, former cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan is said to be spoken for as the Sri Lankan governor for the Northern Province, according to reports in the Indian press.

<p>A top investigator in Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) credited with making breakthroughs in high profile cases involving military and state personnel, has fled Sri Lanka with his family.</p> <p>Nishantha de Silva, head of the organised crimes investigation unit at the CID has reportedly traveled to Switzerland with his family, without the approval of the Sri Lankan police department.&nbsp;</p>

Britain’s former prime minister David Cameron described how he refused to shake Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s hand when he met the Rajapaksa brothers in a “showdown” in Colombo in 2013, that was described as one of “the worst tempered foreign meeting(s)” during his tenure.

Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary, General Kamal Gunaratna, issued instructions to Sri Lanka’s police to take tougher measure to 'curb the drug menace'. 

This state came yesterday during a special meeting with senior officers of the Police Narcotic Bureau at the Defence Ministry and increasing securitisation by the Sri Lankan state.

In the wake of the United National Party’s loss at last week’s Sri Lankan presidential elections, Ranil Wickremesinghe called on the party to examine on how it lost its Sinhala Buddhist voter base and forge ahead with Buddhist principles.

"Our attention should be focused on the loss of Sinhala Buddhist voter base for the party,” said Wickremesinghe, who resigned from the post of prime minister this week. “We need to especially look into why we lost the Sinhala Buddhist votes."

The US Ambassador to Sri Lanka called on the new president and accused war criminal Gotabaya Rajapaksa this week, where they discussed  “a US partnership [with] a sovereign, secure, and prosperous Sri Lanka”.

<p>Newly elected President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has begun concentrating power in his own family by appointing his brothers Mahinda and Chamal as ministers,&nbsp;writes Hannah Ellis-Peterson, in an article&nbsp;for The Guardian.&nbsp;</p>

<p>President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, appointed his brothers, Mahinda and Chamal in his new&nbsp;interim cabinet, to&nbsp;serve as ministers until the next parliamentary election.</p> <p>Mahinda is the&nbsp;Minister of Finance, Economic Affairs, Policy Development, Buddha Sasana, Cultural, Water Supply &amp; Urban Development, Housing Facilities&nbsp;and Chamal is the&nbsp;Minister of Mahaweli Development, Agriculture &amp;Trade.</p>

The director of Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was demoted on Thursday.

As director Shani Abeysekera oversaw cases involving military personnel including the abduction and disappearance of 11 youths by the Sri Lankan navy.

Other high profile cases included the ongoing murder trial of prominent Sri Lankan editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, and more recently the framing of a Muslim doctor falsely accused of sterilising Sinhala women.

Tamils across the North-East have stated that remembrance activities for Maaveerar Naal on November 27 will go ahead despite increased fears after the election of accused war criminal Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president last week.

India stated that its external affairs minister called on Sri Lanka’s new president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to “reconciliation to arrive at a solution that meets the aspirations of the Tamil community for equality, justice, peace and dignity,” after the two met in Colombo earlier this week.

While there has been jubilation in much of the Sinhala south, Tamils and Muslims across the North-East fear that the return of a Rajapaksa regime means further rights abuses, wrote Thusiyan Nandakumar, Tamil Guardian’s editor-in-chief in The National this week.

“For communities such as Tamils and Muslims, there is now an overwhelming sense of fear and trepidation,” said Nandakumar.

The Tamil road names of a street in Colombo have been removed from signs, tweeted a former Sri Lankan minister, as yet anti-Tamil language incident erupted on the island.