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| Friday, 23 April 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| Tamil National Alliance, Hela Urumaya join forces: Lokubandara elected Speaker by Rodney Martinesz, Jayantha Sri Nissanka and Bharatha Malawaraarachchi
After ten tension packed hours of high drama in which a tie was declared at the first round of voting and with the Tamil National Alliance and the Jathika Hela Urumaya joining forces in support of the UNP nominee, in the third round of voting, former Minister of Justice and Leader of the House, W. J. M. Lokubandara of the UNP was elected Speaker of the 13th Parliament yesterday. Lokubandara eventually scraped through in the third round of balloting by a single vote obtaining 110 votes as against 109 by the Government nominee for the post, D.E.W. Gunasekera. The first round of voting was deadlocked with both candidates obtaining 108 votes each. Two Bhikkhus of the Jathika Hela Urumaya, the Ven. Katholuwe Ratanasiha and Ven. Aparekke Pannanda broke ranks and voted with the Government in support of the candidature of D.E.W.Gunasekera. Interestingly, the tie was brought about by one ballot paper cast by the opposition being rejected. This solitary vote eventually went to the Government. The second vote was suspended due to objections raised by Government members who charged that some UNP members had openly displayed their ballot papers. The objection was upheld and a third vote was called by the Secretary General of Parliament. Hectic lobbying was seen at this stage for the votes of the JHU monks, particularly by UNP stalwarts Ravi Karunanayake and Mahinda Samarasinghe. The duo together with MP Jayalath Jayawardena were seen in intense discussion with the monks. Eventually the two front rankers from the JHU, Ven. Athuruliye Rathana and Ven. Omalpe Sobitha voted for UNP nominee Lokubandara. Their act came under heavy fire from Government ranks who accused the prelates of combining with terrorist to betray the popular verdict of the masses. When JHU front ranker Ven. Athuruliye Rathana rose to make his speech congratulating the new Speaker, he was heckled all the way as a supporter of seperatists, terrorists and Eelamists. The monk was repeatedly interrupted by his colleague opposing him from two rows behind who pledged his allegiance to the Government. The two kept springing up and down from their seats in heated argument. Government MPs also held aloft copies of the printed oath expressing allegiance to the Sovereign State of Sri Lanka and renouncing separatism, which has to be taken by all members of Parliament. "Will the TNA abide by this oath. Is it not with these separatists that you have joined to defeat the popular will of the people," enraged Government MPs demanded from the JHU leaders. Controversy and fiasco was the norm right throughout the marathon voting which commenced with allegations of ballot tampering made by Ports and Aviation Minister Mangala Samaraweera against UNP's Gamini Jayawickrema Perera. Minister Samaraweera charged that the UNP MP had made a beeline to the Benches of the front row JHU monks in their absence and crossed their ballots in favour of the opposition. There was also continuous uproar in the morning over procedure adopted by the Parliament Secretary General for voting. Barring one member from the Tamil National Alliance who had resigned all other MPs were present at voting time. Voting was by secret ballot with each member called by name and issued with a ballot paper to be cast into the wooden box placed in the middle of the aisle. This was changed to a covered booth for the final round of voting which began around 5.20 in the evening. The final count was 110 votes for the UNP Nominee W. J. M. Lokubandara and 109 votes for Government nominee D. E. W. Gunasekera. Lokubandara was then escorted to the Speaker's Chair by the Speaker of the 12th Parliament, Joseph Michael Perera and SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem. The LTTE sponsored Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi along with SLMC, CWC and UPF voted for the UNP candidate in all three rounds. The decisive votes in the third round were cast by two of the seven Hela Urumaya members who did not vote in the two earlier rounds. |
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