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Friday, 3 November 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Dharisha Bastians
Former President and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa cried conspiracy and questioned the timing of the constitution-making process in a rare speech in Parliament yesterday, when the Constitutional Assembly met for the fourth consecutive day to debate the Interim Report of the Steering Committee on the new constitution.
“The way I see it, the Government is trying to bring the new constitution as a payoff to the external and domestic forces that conspired to bring it to power in January 2015,” the former Head of State charged, resorting to conspiracy theorising as he critiqued the Interim Report.
The conspiracy was apparent even in the way the debate on the Interim Report had been structured during the week, with the Joint Opposition being given limited opportunities to express their views on the report, the ex-President charged.
According to the former President, the 55 or so MPs of the ‘Joint Opposition’ were the “real opposition force” in the country, but they were only getting two or three speeches during a day of sittings. Instead the debate was being dominated by speakers who were all stakeholders in the Yahapalanaya administration in one form or the other, Rajapaksa accused.
“Look at how the debate goes. First a UNP MP speaks for the Government. Then a TNA member will address representing the opposition. Then a SLFP MP speaks for the Government followed by a JVP parliamentarian for the opposition,” Rajapaksa elaborated to make his point.
“All these speakers are united in the conspiracy to bring a new constitution,” he claimed.
Rajapaksa also quipped that the Assembly had been reverberating with his words and his name over the past three days of debate on the halfway report by the Steering Committee. To justify their positions, Government MPs were using his campaign promises to bring about a new constitution in 2015, he said.
“I planned a constitution that would create unity among the communities in this country. These Government proposals on a new constitution are aimed at dividing the country,” he clarified. If the proposals are included in a new constitution, the Central Government will lose all power, without the ability to take them back without a two-thirds majority and a referendum, Rajapaksa claimed.
“When I said 13 Plus, I never said go ahead and divide the country,” the former President clarified, holding fast to the battle-cry of his loyalist Joint Opposition faction in Parliament that the power sharing arrangements proposed for the new constitution would lead to secession. But the former Head of State insisted that he was not a racist or a religious fanatic. “No one can label us that way. My Government rehabilitated 12,700 LTTE cadres and set them free,” he claimed.
Asserting that he was opposed to the devolution proposals currently under discussion, the former President said the Government should stick to meeting the other reform promises it made in January 2015.
“We have a strong suspicion this constitution-making process is an effort to distract from and delay provincial council and local government polls,” he charged.
Rajapaksa insisted that this was not the time to be drafting constitutions. “In the north people are drinking poison because they have no means to live. What the people of the north need are jobs and livelihoods, not a new constitution,” he charged. “It is sad that in these circumstances the Government has prioritised the new Constitution and the needs of northern politicians over the needs of the people living in the north,” he added.
The former President and Kurunegala MP urged Prime Minister Wickremesinghe to allow UNP MPs to cast conscience votes on the new constitution. About 40 MPs who had contested under his leadership at the 2015 Parliamentary election were now ministers in the Government, Rajapaksa claimed, adding that he hoped that when the time came, these members would also vote according to their conscience rather than on party lines
“That is my appeal to this House. That all members of this Parliament vote on this new constitutional draft based on their own conscience,” he pleaded.
