Sri Lanka, 2018 — auto-coup attempt

Event Summary

The dataset records an event on 9 November 2018 coded as an auto coup episode in Sri Lanka during a grave constitutional crisis, when President Maithripala Sirisena, having abruptly tried to replace his prime minister, dissolved parliament to escape the ensuing deadlock. The crisis had erupted on 26 October 2018, when Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and, in a stunning reversal of alliances, installed his own former rival, the strongman ex president Mahinda Rajapaksa, in his place, an appointment widely condemned as unconstitutional. When Wickremesinghe refused to leave and it became clear Rajapaksa could not command a parliamentary majority, Sirisena, on 9 November, dissolved parliament outright and called snap elections, a move his opponents denounced as a naked power grab to avoid a no confidence vote and manufacture a favorable result.

But the maneuver was blocked: the Supreme Court stayed the dissolution and later ruled it unconstitutional, parliament reconvened and passed no confidence motions against Rajapaksa, and after weeks of paralysis Sirisena was forced to back down, reinstating Wickremesinghe in December. Sri Lanka's democratic institutions, the courts and parliament, had checked the president's overreach.