Souls for sale!

Tuesday 26th July, 2022

The JVP is notorious for miscalculations, which are legion, but it seems to have got its maths right for once anent the outcome of the recent vote in Parliament. Leader of the JVP-led NPP Anura Kumara Dissanayake has sought to bolster his claim that some Opposition MPs had their palms greased to back Ranil Wickremesinghe at the 20 July vote in the House to elect the eighth Executive President. Wickremesinghe polled 134, Dullas Alahapperuma 82 and Dissanayake 03.

There weren’t as many as 134 MPs sitting with Wickremesinghe in Parliament when he was the Prime Minister, and therefore it was obvious that some Opposition MPs backed him for money without breaking ranks, the JVP leader has said, noting that they lack the courage to stand up and be counted. Dissanayake insists that some SJB MPs voted for Wickremesinghe. This fact will become evident if a vote is taken in the House on the extension of Emergency on 27 July, Dissanayake has argued, predicting that the government will not be able to secure the support of 134 MPs tomorrow as there will not be a secret ballot. The Standing Order 47 provides for vote by voice, vote by name or vote by rising.

The only way the Opposition could expose the government’s real strength tomorrow is to ensure that all its MPs will be present in the House during the Emergency debate, and then call for a division so that the SLPP will have to go full steam ahead and get every government MP to vote. If the SLPP fails to obtain 134 votes, then the JVP’s claim of a fifth column in the Opposition will hold water.

It is not only the Opposition MPs who take money to vote in favour of their political rivals; there are situations where the ruling party MPs also do so even at the risk of placing national security in peril. In 2007, following an abortive attempt by the then Opposition to defeat Budget 2008 presented by the Mahinda Rajapaksa government at the height of war, Alahapperuma, who was a minister at the time, disclosed at a media briefing that some government MPs had been bribed to vote against the budget, as part of a conspiracy to bring down the government and derail the war; they had been found in hotels with foreign prostitutes, he said, claiming that the government had fought quite a battle to prevent those corrupt, randy elements in the garb of MPs from doing what they had taken bribes for. The Rajapaksa government won the budget vote. Alahapperuma stopped short of revealing how that task had been accomplished, but there is reason to believe that the Rajapaksas outbribed their opponents.

While it is being debated whether some MPs sold their souls last week, the SLPP is reported to have decided to initiate disciplinary action against its Chairman Prof. G. L. Peiris for backing Alahapperuma in the presidential contest. The SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam publicly endorsed the then Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s candidacy, but Prof. Peiris contradicted him, saying the SLPP had to support its MP, Alahapperuma. Wickremesinghe’s victory has thus caused another crippling rift in the SLPP at this crucial juncture.

If the SLPP resorts to disciplinary action against Prof. Peiris for backing Alahapperuma, it will have to mete out the same treatment to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as well. It may be recalled that while leaving Parliament after the election of Wickremesinghe as the President, Mahinda, in answer to a question from a journalist, said, “We supported Dullas, but he lost!” Now that Mahinda has said so—for whatever reason— Kariyawasam will have to explain why he has not called for any action against Mahinda; he apparently has no leg to stand on.