Political Column

It was an erstwhile parliamentary colleague from the Government benches who asked his close friend and now National Congress co-leader, Mangala Samaraweera the question - isn't the United National Party (UNP) in disarray over the vote of no-confidence against Tourism Minister Milinda Moragoda?

"If that's true, why doesn't the Government allow the motion to be debated in Parliament next week instead of trying to adopt delaying tactics?" asked Samaraweera, the one time foreign minister. His remarks seem to underscore the dilemma not only in the UNP but also in the Government over the no-confidence motion. Chief Government Whip and Cabinet Minister, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, declared in Parliament that a date for the debate would be given later.

That clearly showed that the motion will not be debated in Parliament this year. One of the two days of sittings next Tuesday, the 23rd has been set apart for the Local Government (Amendment) Bill to cancel nominations received in February 2006 for elections to 33 local bodies in the North and call for fresh nominations. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is agreeable to do away with the debate, but is not saying whether it will vote in favour of the bill or against it. But for this issue, it is in favour of keeping the date free for any other debate. Wednesday October 24 has been set apart for a debate on matters relating to tea small holders - an issue raised by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

Thereafter, Parliament resumes in November, when the Budget will be presented on the 7th and the debate will proceed until the 14th of December, after which most parliamentarians have already started making plans for their sojourns with a good number going abroad.

Former Speaker and current UNP frontliner Joseph Michael-Perera wrote to the incumbent Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara earlier this week reminding him of the fact that all party leaders had agreed to the Local Government Bill without a debate next Tuesday and therefore the Moragoda no-confidence motion could be debated. The Speaker has now called for another party leaders’ meeting tomorrow on the matter.

When Joseph Michael-Perera spoke to the Leader of the House Nimal Siripala de Silva to discuss the matter, de Silva seemed to hem and haw. He said the government's parliamentary group will have to decide on it first. The government's parliamentary group meeting is scheduled also for the same date, making it unlikely that the party leaders will meet after the government group meeting.

Tourism Minister Moragoda was quick to say that he will be very happy to have an early debate on the no-confidence motion against him. He got a lot of publicity for this brave front. However, behind the scenes, his Private Secretary C.A.D.S. Collure wrote the following letter to the originator of the motion, breakaway Sri Lanka Freedom Party MP Sripathy Sooriyarachchi in reply to a letter the MP had sent Moragoda;

" … My belief is that any Member of Parliament who is aware of the traditions in Parliament should be aware that my minister is not responsible for fixing dates for such events. "Dates for parliamentary business are decided at the party leaders’ meeting. Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who attends these meetings could take part in the next meeting and take part in the process of deciding the next date".

Collure then proceeds to explain that Moragoda was not a Director of Mercantile Credit at the time the company borrowed a fabulous amount of money from the Central Bank and could not pay it back. He says this sum was paid by the Central Bank only after the Bank took over the control of the company in 1992.

"The allegation about the depositors' funds should be answered by the Central Bank. If you are receiving complaints from pensioners and innocent depositors they should be submitted to the Central Bank," Collure tells Sooriyarachchi helpfully. At least one Moragoda supporter in the mainstream UNP seems intent on opposing the motion, Mohamed Maharoof, a.k.a. 'Cement Maharoof' because the virtual monopoly he held in the cement import business. Maharoof was only an agent when he took it upon himself, or so he makes everyone believe. He submitted a memorandum during the President Ranasinghe Premadasa tenure proposing that the shares of the government owned Cement Corporation in Mahaveli Marine Cement Company be sold to the Swiss Marine Cement Ltd.

It's hard to imagine that Maharoof alone could do such a thing. But in an affidavit signed by himself, this is what he says;
"I made representation to the Cabinet of Ministers in order to take steps to privatize Mahaveli Marine Cement Company Limited in that for the Sri Lanka Cement Corporation to transfer certain portions of its shares in Mahaveli Marine Cement Company Limited to Marine Cement Ltd.".

"I was instrumental in the preparation of a Memorandum dated 10th December, 1991 to be submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers on 'Divestiture of the shares held by the Sri Lanka Cement Corporation in the Mahaveli Marine Cement Company Limited".
Everyone who knew President Premadasa knew he took quick decisions. It seems the Premadasa Cabinet has lost no time in approving Maharoof's Memorandum. Exactly a week later, on 17 December, 1991 the Premadasa Cabinet granted approval for 26% of the Cement Corporation’s shares be sold to the Swiss company.

In this same affidavit, Maharoof says this;"I did not seek payment for the manoeuvres and efforts", and then goes on to vividly say how he was asked to "manipulate" a further 25% of the Cement Corporation shares, which he duly carried out for the price of Rs. 50/- per share. His complaint is that the Swiss company ultimately did him in by not honouring an MoU between them to a share of the profits.

As we said last week in this column Maharoof and Moragoda had an un-official electoral pact as well. They were partners in, well, politics. A large number of preferential votes for Moragoda came from the huge UNP vote bank in Colombo Central. This week, after he had written to his Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe saying he will oppose the Moragoda motion, the two met. Once, at a wedding. On both occasions Wickremesinghe asked him to say what he has to say at the Opposition group meeting when they meet. In the meantime, Maharoof continued with his UNP activities, visiting the Sunday fair distributing anti-government leaflets in the company of the party secretary Tissa Attanayake.

That the UNP itself was dragging its feet on the issue in the face of the Maharoof rear-guard effort on behalf of Moragoda came to light when the party did not make any formal announcement uptodate that it would support the motion, even though one of its MP's had been a co-signatory to it. Party high-ups say that the decision will be taken at the parliamentary group meeting. But others say that even the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has decided to support the motion even without signing to it, but not the UNP.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, however, seems inclined to back the motion fully against his once-trusted adviser turned Brutus, and others who have longed opposed the Moragoda-Maharoof influence in the UNP hierarchy, especially when they together messed up the party's nominations list for the Colombo Municipal Council recently, say that Wickremesinghe seems to be in a mood to say goodbye to even Maharoof, for all he cares. "He (Maharoof) has to choose between the dissidents and those who are loyalists of the party," the parliamentarian who has throughout opposed Moragoda declared.

The fact that the UNP wanted to push for the debate, despite the storm in a teacup caused by Maharoof, indicates its confidence to pull off some surprises. It had won assurances from some Government parliamentarians, members of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) of their vote when the no-confidence motion was put to vote. This, the parliamentarians in question have been told, was not a move against the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government but one to show their disapproval of corruption and malpractices. But this week, there were indications that the government MPs in question had got cold feet. The news that a debate would not be forthcoming at least until after January next year is said to be one of the main causes for them to lie low.

That, no doubt, was disappointing news for leaders of the National Congress. In that backdrop comes more disappointing news if they turn out to be true and become reality. There was strong speculation in the higher echelons of the Government that with the conclusion of the budget debate, President Rajapaksa would prorogue Parliament. Prorogation is not to dissolve Parliament, but which merely discontinues meeting without calling for fresh elections, and then to reconvene Parliament. In the process, what happens is that all motions before the House (Parliament) lapse and have to be re-introduced. This is one little temporary escape route for the Moragoda no-confidence motion. But a more far reaching consequence would follow.

The precursor to the vote of no-confidence against Moragoda is the series of findings in the COPE reports about alleged corruption, malpractices, mismanagement and other irregularities in the public sector. It was the COPE chaired by Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe that shed light on them through its damning reports. It was the revelations in these reports that formed the basis for the no-confidence motion.

A prorogation would mean the COPE would cease to exist. A new Committee would have to be appointed. That is not all. All Parliamentary Select Committees will also cease to exist. If such a prorogation does materialize, it could also spell the end of the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee that is to be appointed to probe the controversial MiG-27 fighter jets from Ukraine. Parliament has decided on this Committee and the Speaker, W.J.M. Lokubandara has written to leaders of political parties asking them to nominate their representatives. If the Government is keen to have a Select Committee still probe the controversial deal riddled with alleged corruption and other irregularities, a motion will have to be re-submitted. This is if the House is indeed prorogued.

Also discussed in the higher echelons of the Government is a possible Cabinet re-shuffle. Such a move during prorogation and ahead of a new Parliament, Government sources say, will see the inclusion of the brother of the President, his Senior Advisor and now Parliamentarian, Basil Rajapaksa, becoming a Minister. With a new Cabinet, President Rajapaksa, would be ready to make a new statement of Government policy when Parliament resumes.

Such a move would no doubt come as a major snub on the Opposition parties that had hoped to defeat the Government during the budget debate - a move that would have paved the way for parliamentary general elections. But hopes of such a move have crumbled due to a number of reasons. Here again, some of those within the Government ranks seemed less enthusiastic now about supporting the Opposition moves. Added to that, the on-again-off-again Ceylon Workers Congress, led by Arumugam Thondaman, has all gone back to the Government fold. If they accused Basil Rajapaksa of using bad and insulting language against their leaders, decided to give up their portfolios but remain within the Government, they have changed their mind now. Even bad language and insults, it appears, would be no barrier to high office and perks. They even swallowed their pride of demanding an apology from President Rajapaksa.

Another factor was the possible opposition to the budget by the JVP. A precursor to this was JVP's Sunil Handunetti becoming a party, among others, to public interest litigation before the Supreme Court. They challenged the Appropriation Bill. However, on Thursday a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva made an observation that the Court may not have jurisdiction to go into matters that were essentially in Parliament's domain, especially on financial matters, though he said he would convey his official opinion to the President and the Speaker in due course.

Though the case has been rejected by the Supreme Court, a corollary of the move, the inclusion of the JVP representative in the action showed their opposition to provisions in the Appropriation Bill. Thus, one could argue the JVP would also oppose the follow-up to this Bill, the Government's budget proposals.

But other issues have irked the JVP. One is the budget proposals that came up this week before the Western Provincial Council. If both the UNP and JVP membership in the Council had got together and voted against the budget, it would have led to the Government led Council being defeated. Such a move would have necessitated fresh elections to the Western Provincial Council. But the JVP has charged that instead, the UNP was giving 'conditional support' to Chief Minister Reginald Cooray and his group.

The UNP position is that their own group was in two minds; one was whether to join the JVP and defeat the government, or whether to move an amendment and get Cooray to agree to getting the Council's approval for each and every law and by-law they were to pass. The argument for the latter was that it would keep Cooray and the government begging for mercy at voting time on each and very occasion.

Such an amendment was eventually moved, and Cooray was quick in grabbing at the life-line thrown to him by the UNP. He even made a statement saying he would obey this amendment. But this has infuriated the JVP, which said that this is the UNP that is seeking their support to oust the government at the main budget.

At a time the UNP is on a bridge-building, confidence building exercise with the JVP, the decision to ignore the JVP's call and instead help Cooray survive in a corrupt Western Province Provincial Council can be a costly mistake for the UNP. A defeat of Cooray and the government would have triggered fresh elections for the Council in one of the provinces where the cost-of-living has hit the citizenry the hardest. It would have seen the UNP and the JVP campaigning on different paths but in the same frequency.

While votes several ministries in the WPC were passed with UNP support, the overall vote is to be taken up tomorrow and the UNP was set to vote for the budget. According to the council's UNP opposition leader Kithsiri Kahatapitiya, they decided to vote in favour of the amendments and the budget as the process will be good for the accountability to the council.

However, UNP's Shaul Hameed will not be with his party - not because he wants to support the JVP to defeat the Cooray administration in the Council, but because he says, Cooray amalgamated two schools in Borella, one of which was built by his father, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M.H.Mohamed, MP for Colombo district, who joined the Rajapaksa administration with the 17 defections last February .

The WPC composition is UNP- 39, SLFP - 36, JVP 23, SLMC -4, Muslim League- 1, WPPF -1 . In Puttalam on Friday, Ranil Wickremesinghe addressed yet another National Congress rally where he upgraded his criticism of the Rajapaksa Presidency. From the Beeshanaya, Dooshanaya, Rajapasa Poshanaya theme, he has now graduated to calling it the Rajapaksa Junta. He explained that the Government was attacking the students, trade unionists, the media and loading problems on the people with high prices on essential goods.

The Party has also launched a mass mobilization campaign by a novel method of having Buddhist paritta or pirith (stanzas) chanting country-wide to invoke blessings on a people suffering because of a wicked Government. But more than all this, they missed a golden and real opportunity to bring down the government-led Western Provincial Council. It almost seemed that the UNP was un-willing or un-prepared to take over the mantle of governance, just yet.

UNP misses golden opportunity to work with JVP