Following the extension of emergency laws by another month last Friday (Feb 5), President Mahinda Rajapaksa dissolved Parliament with effect from Wednesday (Feb 10) and called for general election likely before the forthcoming Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

The President, who returned from a three-day official visit to Russia earlier in the day, dissolved the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Parliament which was formed in early April 2004. President Rajapaksa won a second term with an overwhelming 1.8 million-vote majority at the January 26 polls, but his new term will begin on November 19, 2010.

The term of the sixth Parliament was scheduled to end on April 22.

Asked about the fate of the emergency laws, government sources said: "The President has the discretion to extend them through an executive order which needs to be ratified within a month by the new Parliament. It is entirely up to the President to make a determination on whether to go for an executive order to keep alive the emergency laws, or let them lapse and wait for the new Parliament to take necessary action."

Under the Constitution, emergency laws could be passed only by Parliament and would be valid only for one month.