UNP making another bid to topple Sri Lankan Govt.

COLOMBO, OCT. 7. The United National Party(UNP), Sri Lanka's main Opposition party, is making yet another bid to bring down the People's Alliance (PA) Government through a no-confidence vote in Parliament this week, but needs to engineer many defections to succeed.

Parliament meets on October 9, and leaders of all Parliamentary parties will confer tomorrow to decide the date for taking up the no-confidence motion debate.

The President, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga, entered into a survival pact last month with the Marxist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) whose 10 lawmakers will support the PA regime for a year, but the United National Party (UNP) is banking on key dissidents within the PA to help it topple the Government.

UNP members, who number 88 in the 225-member House, are expected to get the backing of nine legislators representing the Tamil parties, but are unsure of the Sri Lanka Muslim Party's support.

The UNP is banking on three former Ministers, who are now openly critical of Mrs. Kumaratunga and the Government, to bring with them a dozen disgruntled MPs. A ready-made grievance is available to many former Ministers who lost their portfolios under the PA- JVP agreement, which reduced the number of Cabinet Ministers from 43 to 20 and junior Ministers from 34 to 20.

The JVP, which extracted a series of populist measures from the Government in exchange for its one-year support, is determined to help the PA defeat the no-confidence motion.

Besides slashing the size of the Ministry, the JVP has forced the Government to waive farm loans and ensured that it made a major amendment to the Constitution to free democratic institutions from political interference.

This is the second attempt by the UNP to oust the Government through a no-confidence motion after the PA-led coalition assumed power in October 2000. Its earlier motion submitted to Parliament in June was not allowed to be taken up, as Mrs. Kumaratunga invoked her executive power to suspend Parliament for two months.

She resorted to the measure after it became certain that she did not have the numbers to save the PA regime, but was barred by the Constitution from dissolving the House within the first year of its existence.

This time, however, she has the option of dissolving Parliament in the event of a real threat to her regime, as the House would complete its first year on October 10. The contingency may not arise, as the Government is confident of sailing through. While the extent of discontent among the dissidents is not known, the SLMC, which now has six members (one of its MPs died last week), is yet to announce its stand on the motion. The Leader of the House and senior Minister, Mr. Richard Pathirana, has said the Government was ready to face the no-trust vote any day, and many other Ministers are confident that the motion will be defeated.

LTTE concerned

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is extremely concerned over the possibility of the United States and Sri Lanka drawing closer militarily if the U.S. uses the country as a refuelling stop in its impending attack against Afghanistan, media reports said. With this in mind, the LTTE high command has ordered an increase in attacks against the Sri Lankan armed forces, in an attempt to make the U.S. Government believe that its forces would not be safe even during a brief stopover in this country. These attacks include assaults on the armed forces in the North-East, and possibly bomb attacks in other parts of the country, The Sunday Island, quoting sources in the LTTE-held areas and in its headquarters, reported.

The report said use of the eastern Trincomalee port or the China Bay air force base have been definitely ruled out by the U.S. as they are in the middle of the conflict zone and the only other possibilities are refuelling in the Colombo port or at Katunayake.

- PTI, UNI

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