Sri Lanka’s president reshuffled his Cabinet on Sunday, bringing in 10 new ministers from the main opposition party and cementing his majority in Parliament. In total, 19 members of the opposition United National Party crossed over to Rajapakse’s government on Sunday, presidential spokesman Lucien Rajakarunanayake said. Only 10 were sworn into Rajapakse’s newly announced 52-member Cabinet, he said.The defection of the opposition legislators today could well be a crucial development in Sri Lanka’s fragile peace proces with the Tamil Tiger rebels. The development has put in danger the landmark deal between the two major Sinhalese party in October aimed at ending decades of separatist violence in the island nation.Rajapakse’s leftist Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the opposition right-wing United National Party (UNP) agreed in October to work together to hammer out a political solution to the long-running Tamil separatist conflict.Sri Lanka’s “undeclared-war” could get worse amid political upheavals. Though the government will no longer be in a minority in the 225-member legislature, it still lacks the two-thirds majority needed to make any radical changes to the constitution to secure a peace deal with the LTTE. “From the time the defectors are given portfolios and taken to the government side, our MOU (memorandum of understanding) will be over,” UNP secretary Tissa Attanayake said.“The defections mean the end of the MOU between the government and the opposition,” said Sunanda Deshapriya, a director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives think tank. “I don’t think we will see any movement on the peace front for some time. The government believes it can make territorial gains. We don’t know how the Tigers will respond, but we can guess it will be through violence.”Tiger chief V. Prabhakaran vowed in November to resume his separatist campaign. The worsening violence was underscored yesterday when the LTTE staged an abortive attack against the main sea port of Colombo, a week after the military captured a rebel bastion elsewhere.Many expect the government’s hardline stance against the Tigers to be strengthened with the president now having strengthened his hold on the legislature.
