Lankan Govt postpones provincial council elections

When the scheduled debate on the extension of Emergency to the whole country — it has been in force in some part till now — began in Parliament on Wednesday morning, the government came in for severe criticism from Opposition parties. It was approved by the House only after heated arguments that lasted late into the evening. The final tally was 116 votes for and 81 against.

The postponement of the elections, which has been the subject of speculation for nearly twomonths, came as no surprise, especially after the proclamation of island-wide emergency early on Tuesday.

Though the election process had been set in motion last month with nominations already filed, the government was making a case for putting off the polls on the grounds that providing security to candidates and polling booths would involve withdrawing troops from the war front, where the military is engaged in a fierce battle with the Tamil Tigers.

In fact, deputy defence minister Anuruddha Ratwatte had even threatened to “give up responsibility” for the war effort if the elections were held as scheduled. Describing the war as nearly “finished”, he said holding the elections at this “crucial” stage would give the LTTE a fresh lease of life.

Influential Buddhist monks also threw their weight behind the government’s moves to put off the provincial council elections, arguing that finishing off the LTTE was the first priority facing the nation.

However, with the Opposition unwilling to support aconstitutional amendment for the postponement, the only option before the government was to do it by imposing an emergency.

Opposition parties cried foul when the motion on the Emergency came up for debate in Parliament this morning. The United National Party said it would challenge the emergency in court while a parliamentarian of the leftist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), a government coalition partner, walked out. Two of the LSSP members, including science and technology minister Batty Weerakoon abstained during the vote.

Moving the motion, Ratwatte said the step had been necessitated because of the various acts of sabotage by the LTTE all over the country, including bomb attacks on electricity transformers and telephone exchanges. Defending the government on a sticky wicket, he said the police had unearthed a plot by the Tamil Tigers to assassinate leader of the estate Tamils of central Sri Lanka, S Thondaman.

The government has a majority of just one in Parliament but the motion was passed withthe support of some of its Tamil allies. However, two Tamil parties, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), voted against the motion.