Government legislators seemed to be not so keen on facing a parliamentary election. This was amply demonstrated at the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) annual convention last Sunday. They all raised their hands in support of a presidential election when President Mahinda Rajapaksa asked them whether they wanted a parliamentary or a presidential election first and urged them to express their choice by a show of hands.
But however much government legislators may try to avoid going for a fresh mandate from the people, a general election is inevitable before April next year, as the six-year term of the present Parliament ends in that month.
As to why many ruling party MPs are apprehensive about facing a general election may have to do with the post-war reality. During the past three years, they relied too much on military successes against the LTTE to prop themselves up but six months after the defeat of the Tigers they have to face up to other issues that they had overlooked for sometime.
This may be one of the reasons why they did not want to run the risk of giving the opposition more time in parliament.
With the vote-on-account already approved by Parliament, the Government did not appear very eager to hold four full days of sittings last week. This angered both the UNP and the JVP. They wanted sittings on at least three days and agreed to forego sittings on November 18, the President’s birthday, because on this day government members would be attending celebrations.
Amidst heated argument, the government offered to hold sitting for two days with extended hours so that opposition members would have more time to speak. But the opposition stood its ground. In the end, the government side prevailed: sittings were restricted to one day.
Chief Opposition Whip Joseph Michael Perera said the government could have held sittings on additional days next week if it was genuinely interested in giving more time to the opposition to speak.
“The government is using executive power to stifle the rights of MPs to speak in the House,” he charged.
JVP MP Sunil Handunneti said the government decision to restrict sittings to one day seemed to be based on astrological predictions that it would be unfavourable to the government if sittings were held on four days.
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Bathiudeen |
Joseph Michael Perera |
Sunil
Handunneti |
Another JVP MP, Bimal Ratnayake, said it was not possible to debate four items in one day.
In spite of the UNP and the JVP having their vociferous say, the government had its way and announced that parliament would meet again on December 8. This resulted in the UNP walking out of the chambers in protest.
The pre-poll blues might be affecting all the opposition party members as well, whether they be from the UNP, the JVP, the TNA or the SLMC. In the past six years, the numbers from the opposition ranks have dwindled, giving the government a comfortable majority.
Twenty one UNP MPs are now with the government and so are 12 from the JVP and eight from the SLMC. The TNA has remained in tact so far but post-war politics has exposed the differences among members of that party as well with some MPs speaking in support of the government efforts particularly on the IDP resettlement issue.
The IDP issue did come up in Parliament last week as well. Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Minister Rishard Bathiudeen said the government spent Rs. 9,926,260 a day to supply food to people in the welfare camps but the numbers were decreasing every day as resettlement was continuing on a daily basis.
Despite the rosy picture the government has been painting about the resettlement of IDPs, there was criticism from TNA Trincomalee district parliamentarian K. Thurairatnasingham who charged that unidentified persons without uniform posing as officials from the Criminal Investigation Department were arresting IDPs who were being resettled and their family members were crying not knowing their whereabouts. |
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