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UPFA's Govt cannot survive, warns Ranil
Ranil warns that UPFA's minority government may not survive and fresh elections may have to be held, reports PK Balachanddran.
The defeated Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has warned that Chandrika Kumaratunga's minority government will not be able to conduct even normal parliamentary business and that after a period of instability, fresh elections may have to be held.
"We are having a re-run of the March 1960 situation in which a minority government could not carry on the business of government and fresh elections had to be held in July," Wickremesinghe told the media here on Monday.
He was meeting the press after his United National Front (UNF) government was unseated by Kumaratunga's United Peoples' Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in the April 2 snap parliamentary elections.
UPFA had got 105 and the UNF 82, in the 225-member house. To form a government and run it, the UPFA would have to get a minimum of 113. Till afternoon on Monday, atleast, it had not succeeded in getting the support of eight more MPs.
Even so, there was a plan to swear in a government on the basis of the fact that the UPFA was the single largest party in parliament.
UNF working on alternative coalition
Wickremesinghe said that the UNF was keen on avoiding another election and was, therefore, trying to cobble up an alternative coalition to bring stability to the system. He further said that the UNF was talking to all parties, including the pro-LTTE Ilanka Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), which has 22 MPs, and the Buddhist monks's party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), which has nine.
Asked to comment on reports that his allies, the Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), were going to join the UPFA government, Wickremesinghe said that the CWC and the SLMC were very much with the UNF and that he planned to have further talks with them later in the evening.
Asked if the change in the government would hamper the peace process, especially since the LTTE, which is operating through the ITAK, had taken a belligerent stand on self determination and its interim constitutional proposals, Wickremesinghe said that not just the peace process but even
ordinary business of government would be at a standstill if the government did not have majority support in parliament.
The fate of the US$ 4.5 billion foreign aid would also be in question, he added.
When asked why like in India, a minority government could not be allowed to survive in Sri Lanka, Wickrmesinghe retorted: "This is not India. This is Sri Lanka!"
The defeat of the UNF did not mean that the people had rejected his peace initiatives, Wickremesinghe said. There could be other reasons for the defeat of the party and this was being looked into, he said.
It was his plea that his government was denied adequate time to prove its worth even though things were going according the blueprint. The first two years were dedicated to the establishment and consolidation of peace and the next four years were meant to build the economy, generate jobs and promote investment. But before the second phase could start, President Kumaratunga suddenly dissolved parliament and called for elections, Wickremesinghe said.
