Parliament meets today with raised concerns by political groups, analysts and intellectuals whether Speaker Karu Jayasuriya will drag it to a yet another showdown in the selection of members to its Committees so as to be applauded by those foreign ambassadors who have so far shown a high opinion of him.
The government group has already submitted seven names of its MPs to be appointed to the 13-member Selection Committee of Parliament in which the Speaker shall be Head.
Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, Prof. G L Peiris and Minister Dinesh Gunawardena yesterday said they hope that the Speaker will give the government the majority of membership in the Committee of Selection respecting the longstanding tradition of Sri Lanka's Parliament that the majority of Select Committee members is given to the government group.
Asked about the possibility of Parliament erupting into chaos in today's sessions, Samarasinghe said, “It is certain that we will not take any part in such eventuality."
Asked if it was a not a problem for them given the UNP's argument that they have the majority in the House, Samarasinghe said, "The UNP's argument is incorrect in this instance because Parliament has strong traditions that any Speaker is bound to preserve."
"Besides," he said,"we are the largest single political party in the country. The UNP's so called majority comes only when the JVP , the TNA , and other political parties put together in their purported line-up, which can change anytime with tensions rising within the United National Party about Wickremesinghe's leadership."
"A majority counted by heads and represented by the people at an election are two different things," he explained.
Meanwhile, political critics said it was apparent considering the behaviour of the UNP so far that they are hardly prepared to give any lee way to the government to quell the impasse they had created in Parliament.
"The UNP is currently trying to create an unrest in the country by fashioning fears in the people with various statements and resolutions, such as that the government cannot spend or borrow money to pay salaries of public servants, state debts and the like without the approval of Parliament," a political analyst said.
'With the recent steps taken by President Maithripala Sirisena having yielded results in terms of calming down the House of representative, The UNP, the TNA and the JVP have taken an intensified course of creating a bleak hostile rhetoric towards the executive branch of Sri Lankan government," he said.
"They do this to cover up unparliamentary behaviour of Speaker Karu Jayasuriya who is currently under heavy flak by former Speakers, deputy Speakers, intellectuals and senior legislators of Parliament for creating chaos in Parliament as with his actions inconsistence with the Constitution overreaching and defying the powers of the executive to appoint the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
President Maithripala Sirisena has said that Speaker Jayasuriya will soon have to face the music of his unconstitutional behavior.
Jayasuriya presumably angry after his political party's leader Ranil Wickremesinghe being sacked by the President and the appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President, has made statements against the gazettes he has lawfully received from the President.
He had made Mahinda Rajapaksa sit on the Prime Minister's chair in Parliament and addressed him as an MP. After creating this impasse in Parliament the Speaker passed a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in Parliament at breakneck speed by taking a voice vote amidst shouting and yelling of the members creating an artificial vacuum of a prime minister.
The Speaker has acted against the President's interest, the privileges and the prerogatives of the executive to move forward the country.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa during his adress at the opening of the House said Speaker Karu Jayasuriya is intentionally violating the Constitution and carrying out his political party's agenda in Parliament mobilised by UNP headquarters at Sirikotha.
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