The importance of being W.J.M.

How serious are the allegations that the Opposition has begun to level against the Speaker of Parliament and can they persuade him to step down?

By Dharisha Bastians
The UNP’s latest victim, in its strange campaign of antagonism, appears to be Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara, who, amidst the massive uproar in Parliament last week, decided to pass the five controversial Tax Bills, back to back, to the utter annoyance of the Opposition.

Last week’s incident was not the first time that such a thing has transpired in the house, with Speaker Joseph Micheal Perera also passing over 30 Bills of a UNF budget in 2003, since he could not have order.
It is a method, experts say, used by the Speaker of the House, when he is aware of the numbers in favour, but does not have order to ascertain it by means of a division of the vote by name.

The JVP is claiming that the Standing Orders of Parliament must be suspended, when an electronic vote is being taken; unfortunately, the party failed to bring this issue at the Party Leaders meeting, at which it was announced that the vote on the five finance Bills would be by electronic voting, nor in fact, when the electronic vote was being taken last Thursday (6) evening. The UNP, on the other hand, is alleging that the Speaker had counted the votes incorrectly, despite the very clear majority of government numbers – 106-81. The UNP, of which Speaker Lokubandara is an elected member, at a press briefing in Colombo yesterday, said that they would keep a close eye on the conduct of the Speaker and take action against him, if he were to act partisan or in contravention of the traditions of Parliament.

The whole parliamentary voting system itself is a complex one. Secret ballot is only permitted during the election of the Speaker or, during voting on a motion of impeachment. According to the Standing Orders of Parliament, MPs must vote openly on all other Bills, since the people have a right to know how their elected representatives use their vote. The electronic vote, utilised last Thursday, is the equivalent to or, as good as the show of hands, with both systems subject to a significant margin of error. If the electronic voting results were very close, the Speaker, then has the option of calling for each MP to stand in turn and state which way he/she was voting.

The UNP is claiming that government MPs intentionally switched on the microphones of members who might have been absent during the time of the vote, to manipulate the electronic voting results. Unfortunately, the furore in the House, instigated by the UNP members themselves, prevented the Speaker from singling out each member to state their vote. In any case, the huge margin, (25) votes, by which the Government appeared to have won, was indicative that the Speaker, unable to quell the storm, probably, made the right choice.
His decision, however, has increased his unpopularity within his own party, which, now firmly believes that the Speaker is in cahoots with the Government. This is especially troublesome for the Speaker, since the UNP has of late, adopted a policy of vicious attacks against persons and institutions that do not fall in line with their thinking. The anti-HSBC sentiment that is continuously being toted by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, at every public rally, and the recent intimidation and attacks on the free media, are all indications that the Opposition is toeing an odd path, in attempting to oust the Rajapaksa administration.
Wickremesinghe, most uncharacteristically, appears to be throwing caution to the wind of late, when he speaks publicly. His anti-HSBC onslaught would have little or no political advantage for his party, and would only serve to antagonise the large corporate entity and also cast doubt in the minds of the international community, with regard to Wickremesinghe’s agendas and policies. In his dealings with the media, the UNP Leader has hit a brick wall, having attempted to intimidate the free press, when he has not been able to influence them into toeing his party line. Now, it looks like the next UNP scapegoat is to be the Speaker – one of its own party men no less.

The question being asked by those who observed proceedings in Parliament last Thursday was, why did the UNP leader, like the JVP, wait until the electronic vote was counted, to register his protest at the irregularity of the procedure. Could it have been simply a matter of sour grapes, when the UNP realised that the Opposition had lost by a significant margin?

The trouble in paradise, from a UNP perspective, is that there is no clear provision in the Constitution for the removal of the Speaker. The only option available to the UNP is to bring a motion of ‘No Confidence’ against Lokubandara but, while the Constitution allows the Opposition to do that, there is no clear indication as to whether or not the Speaker would be compelled to resign, even if the motion goes through. Furthermore, the Government’s support would be very firmly with the Speaker, in the event the UNP calls for his removal. And so, in the long run, all the UNP would have achieved, by this latest campaign of agitation, would be having severely annoyed Speaker Lokubandara, making their life in Parliament, much less rosy in the future.

UNP seniors are none too pleased at their leader’s latest approach to things that do not go his way. Wickremesinghe is a seasoned politician, and many credit him with having the tact and diplomacy that few political leaders in Sri Lanka possess in this day and age. Which begs the question, what has come over the UNP leader in the recent past? Party seniors believe that Wickremesinghe is as usual, being advised by a close knit Colombo 7 coterie and the media mafia that is leading him down the garden path in a phenomenal way, even at this stage, when the Opposition campaign is gathering fire. Party stalwarts feel that the leader’s weakness for listening only to his inner circle, who are, at most times, completely out of touch with reality, would be to the great detriment of the party, in the matter of the Speaker and all the other harebrained causes that Wickremesinghe appears to have taken up recently.

The point to ponder, for Wickremesinghe and his acolytes is how far this campaign of antagonism is really going to take the UNP, on what appears to be a long and arduous road towards effecting a regime change. When it comes to political power, the chips are stacked resolutely in the government’s favour and the opposition can use all the friends it can get. Instead of forging alliances however, the UNP Leader seems determined to deter any support his campaign could possibly receive from the media and other sections of civil society by his recent barrages at public meetings.

This seemingly dictatorial stance adopted by the opposition leader is probably is likely to prove the UNP’s greatest obstacle in the path to regaining political power, for the people, weary though they are of this corrupt and inefficient administration, would be loathe to exchange one tyrant, for another.