Victors ride high amidst new-found foes

By Chandani Kirinde, Our Lobby Correspondent

Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe

The Government managed to survive the first round of the voting on the Appropriation Bill in Parliament last Monday but as the Legislature warms up for the next round of voting on December 14, there is no telling which friend will turn foe and vice versa on the decisive day.

Till then it’s all a guessing game and once again the UNP is threatening to show their colours on that day and defeat the Budget while the Government says the UNP can continue to dream but there is no threat of the government falling.

Prior to the November 19 vote, all eyes were on the JVP, which proved all its 37 Legislators are good at keeping a secret by keeping everyone guessing till the party decision to vote against the Budget was made known when its Kandy district MP Dimuthu Bandara Abeykoon said “No” when his name was called by the Secretary General of Parliament as the vote was being taken by name that evening.

Dilan Perera

The JVP’s decision had little bearing on the final result of the vote with the government comfortably getting home with a majority of 16 votes, 118 for the 102 against the Bill. Except for the sentiments expressed by Minister Anura Bandaranaike that he was voting for the Bill because of his mother and father and no one else and walking out of the Chamber soon after saying “aye”, the much hyped voting day did not live up to the expectations of many who were expecting more drama in the Legislature. Two others who kept their decisions to themselves till voting time were independent law makers Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe and Nandana Gunatilleke both of whom abstained from voting.

MPs of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) also showed up in full strength, minus two , one member being overseas and the other apparently prevented from coming to the Legislature after his son-in-law was abducted by members of a para military group in Batticaloa who asked him to stay away from voting if he wanted his relative to return alive. Fortunately there was a happy ending to this story with his is son-in-law returning safely, but it is far from good news for Parliamentary democracy in Sri Lanka.

Bimal Ratnayake

The victory bolstered the morale of the members on the Government side. The Budget debate entered the Committee stage but the decision of the JVP to vote against the Budget has led to a great deal of acrimony between the two sides that less than just three years ago formed the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) to get the UNP out of office prematurely. Although SLFP MPs tried hard to avoid being overly critical of the JVP , probably in the hope that they would get together once again, the JVP is showing no such signs of reconciliation.

In fact the JVP seems to be facing a state-sponsored drive to label them as “unpatriotic” for voting against the Budget, along with the TNA, very boldly. For a Party that has got into the habit of branding many an individual, political party and organisation as “unpatriotic”, having the tables turned on them seems to be hurting a great deal.

Which is why even some of the less vociferous comrades of the JVP like the Kurunegala district MP Bimal Ratnayake seemed infuriated that such a charge could be levelled at the JVPers. “The JVP does not need editorials written on how to be patriotic. We are well aware of that. It is the government which has misguided notations on patriotism,” Mr.Ratnayake said. These remarks were spiced up by allegations of corruption, lying, cheating etc against members on the Government side.

Some Government members seemed to enjoy seeing the JVP in this unexpected situation, Minister Dilan Perera in particular. “I have been labelled a “Tiger” by some of these persons who are now themselves being called “unpatriotic.” It’s time that labelling everyone who has a different point of view as a “Tiger” is stopped,” he said.

As the Committee stage of the Budget debate continues in the coming week, MPs have the arduous task of reviewing the performances of over a 100 different ministers and expressing their views on how they can do a better job, of the difficult task, given the time constraints. But even in the little time that is allocated to each member to speak, most MPs spend time settling personal scores on who did what, when they were in power at one time or the other, rather than address the real issues at hand. This is the bane of Sri Lankan politics and until law makers learn to dwell less on the past and more on what is happening in the present, many more Budget debates will come and go but the country will stagnate.