Update, September 24: Rifan was sworn in on Thursday morning before Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne, and it is now confirmed that the seat he fills was vacated by the resignation of M.S. Abdul Wahid — a question the original reports left open. See below.

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress has appointed Habeeb Rifan, a lawyer from Oddamavadi in Batticaloa, to its National List seat in Parliament for a term of one year.

The party has formally notified the Election Commission of the decision by letter, and the relevant gazette notification is expected in due course, Hiru News reported on Monday.

The rotation, and who it moved away from

Party secretary Nizam Kariapper said the selection follows the SLMC’s principle of rotation, with this turn moving out of the Ampara District, which held the seat in the previous rotation, according to the Daily Mirror.

Two further factors weighed with the party leadership, Kariapper said in a post on X: Rifan’s willingness to contest the recent Local Government Elections at the party’s request, and the absence of parliamentary representation for the Kalkudah Electorate.

What a one-year term means in practice

The fixed term is the notable feature. A National List seat is allocated to a party rather than won in a constituency, which leaves the party free to set its own tenure and rotate the holder — and the SLMC is doing so explicitly, by district.

That gives the seat a different function from an ordinary electorate seat. Rather than representing one area for a full parliamentary term, it is being used to cycle representation across districts the party holds no seat in, with Kalkudah’s lack of an MP given as the reason this turn lands in Batticaloa.

Neither report gave the date the term begins, who held the seat before Rifan, or whether the rotation order beyond this term has been fixed.

Sworn in, and the seat he fills

Rifan took his oath as a National List Member of Parliament before Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne on Thursday, 24 September, after the morning’s parliamentary proceedings began, the Daily Mirror and Hiru News reported.

Hiru’s report settles the question the appointment announcement left open: the seat became vacant on the resignation of M.S. Abdul Wahid, who had held it as an SLMC National List MP. NewsFirst gives his name in full as Muhammad Sarif Abdul Wahid. That also locates the one-year rotation in a sequence — Rifan is not filling a newly created slot but taking over mid-term from a departing colleague.

The timing puts him in the chamber for the two-day Second Reading debate on the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which opened the same morning and goes to a vote requiring a two-thirds majority on Friday.

A note on the spelling

The outlets do not agree on the name, and they have shifted between filings. On 21 September the Daily Mirror had Habeeb Rifan and Hiru News had Habeeb Rifaan; on the swearing-in, the Daily Mirror has Habib Rifan, Hiru has Habeeb Rifan, and NewsFirst gives a longer form, Habeeb Lebbe Rifan, in both its headline and body.

The NewsFirst version is not simply another transliteration. Lebbe is a distinct name element common in Sri Lankan Muslim naming practice, which suggests the other outlets are shortening a fuller name rather than spelling the same two words differently. All refer to the same MP. The gazette, when published, will settle it.

Sources