Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe seems almost like a rebel without a cause. Which is probably why he is keen now to take up the ‘cause’ of jailed former Army Commander and Opposition common candidate at the last presidential election, Sarath Fonseka, both inside and outside Parliament, and that too, in rather dramatic fashion.
Hence, his walkout of the Chamber of Parliament last Tuesday, removing his Commonwealth emblem embossed tie on the way out, in protest at the Speaker’s ruling, disallowing him from making a statement to the House, which apparently, carried references to the plight of Mr. Fonseka, seemed rather theatrical.
Fonseka’s recent sentencing in the ‘white flag’ case, has given rise to renewed sympathy for him in the public eye, and it seems that at least some UNPers are eager to exploit that situation, and the Opposition Leader too seems to want to toe that line.
The now, well known ‘tie removing’ incident took place on Tuesday, when the UNP leader stood up to make a special statement to the House, notice of which he had given to Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, but Leader of the House, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva objected to it almost immediately.
Minister De Silva used the much abused ‘sub judice’ rule contained in Standing Orders of Parliament, to scuttle Mr. Wickremesinghe’s statement, saying, the matter the UNP leader wanted to refer to was pending in court. The Speaker ruled in favour of the Government’s argument.
Strangely, less than a month ago, the Speaker overruled the Opposition, when they objected to the controversial Revival of Underperforming Enterprises & Underutilised Assets Bill being taken up for debate on the set date, on the same grounds, citing the court cases filed challenging the enactment of that piece of legislation. On that occasion, the Speaker said the ‘sub judice’ rule should not stifle the right of MPs to speak in Parliament. Unfortunately, on this occasion, the ‘sub judice’ rule was used to stifle an MPs right to speak in the House, but like most other rules in the country, what is good for the goose is always not good for the gander.
The Opposition Leader did get the opportunity to make an amended statement to Parliament on Thursday, but unhappy with the manner in which it had been amended, Mr. Wickremesinghe declined to read it.
“The Secretary General has sent me an amended statement, but it does not have the Speaker’s signature. Some of the contents that have been deleted do not come under the ‘sub judice’ rule,” he argued.
However, later in the day, taking part in the committee stage debate of the Budget, Mr. Wickremesinghe read out from the same statement , from which all references to Fonseka had been removed.
While the UNP leader did not mention the former Army Commander by name, in an obvious reference to his plight, Mr. Wickremesinghe said that, if any candidate of any election, provincial, parliamentary or presidential, is persecuted under emergency regulations, which have no application to an election, then it is a violation of the obligation of the State, under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights (ICCPR).
But omission of Sarath Fonseka’s name from the statement could not have been such bad news for the Opposition Leader, who had to watch another of his MPs walk across the Well of the House to join the Government.
Rumours that UNP Colombo District MP Mohanlal Grero was waiting in the wings to cross over at an opportune time was doing the rounds for a few weeks, and he chose the day when the vote on the Second Reading of the Budget was being taken up, to make the announcement.
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| Ranil Wickremesinghe holds a news conference to explain the ‘tie incident’ on Tuesday. |
While journalists covering Parliament regularly are familiar with the self sacrificing statements that most MPs who crossed over to the government side have been making over the past few years, none, even those who said they were doing it because of their love for the country, and wanted to strengthen the hand of the Government when it was fighting the LTTE, did not sound as impassioned as Mr. Grero’s rather mournful sounding speech, in which he sought to justify his decision.
He said he was doing it because of his love for children, for his desire to take education to a new level in the country, and his conviction that President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government is breathing new life into the education sector.
But, having been bestowed with the post of Monitoring MP for the Ministry of Education, just hours after switching sides, it’s likely that his true intentions for changing loyalties will be questioned all round.
One positive development in Parliament last week was the decision by the Speaker to suspend for a week, Petroleum Industries Deputy Minister Sarana Gunawardena, for throwing a water bottle during the unruly scenes that took place on the day the President presented the Budget. It should serve as a warning to other MPs who take for granted that their bad behaviour within the House will go unpunished.
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