January 30, 2007	Tuesday	Muharram 10, 1428

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s minority government has weakened the opposition with a spate of defections and won a crucial simple majority in parliament, but analysts say the turncoats will only trigger more instability.

President Mahinda Rajapakse swore in on Sunday a 53-member cabinet, by far the largest since independence from Britain in 1948.

He accommodated ten defectors in the cabinet and made eight others junior ministers, but sidelined some of his own party stalwarts.

“In the short term, the government will enjoy a parliamentary majority, but this does not mean stability,” said Sunanda Deshapriya, director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) think tank.

He said the serious ideological differences between those who joined the government Sunday and the rest of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party could lead to an uneasy cohabitation. The rump of the opposition was also expected to step up agitation.

“There is nothing to indicate that the new cabinet will shift gear and pay more attention to the peace process,” Deshapriya said. “The government still believes it can crush the Tigers and then go for (peace) talks.” As well as the record number of cabinet ministers, 33 were named non-cabinet ministers and 19 deputy ministers. Only nine MPs for the ruling party were not appointed ministers.

Western diplomats said the wave of defections was a blow to a landmark deal between the government and the main opposition to pursue a bipartisan approach to resolve the Tamil separatist conflict.

The main opposition United National Party (UNP) has torn up the October agreement with president Rajapakse and accused him of bad faith.

“Now that they have undermined our party, we will no longer support the government on resolving the ethnic problem,” UNP lawmaker Ravi Karunanayake said.

Although the government now has a simple majority, it still lacks the two-thirds of the 225-member parliament needed to re-write the constitution.

Any deal with the Tamils would require amendments to the statute, for which opposition support would be essential.

The defections also angered the Marxist JVP, or the People’s Liberation Front, which had supported Rajapakse to win the 2005 elections. With the right-wing UNP legislators entering the cabinet, the Marxists withdrew support for the government.

The JVP opposed concessions to Tamil Tiger rebels and also resisted efforts for a political solution to end the three-decade conflict, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

“Now that the JVP is out of the government, they can step up their public agitation and that could also be in the form of strikes,” said defence specialist Namal Perera.

Privately run newspapers also cautioned the president that he was heading for more trouble although the 18 defections appeared to give him strength in parliament.

“If President Rajapakse thinks everything is hunky dory at the political front for him, he is mistaken,” the Island newspaper warned. “He has apparently won the day and his rivals are licking their wounds.

“But, in politics trouble is often unforeseen... The jumbo cabinet itself is going to be a problem for him,” the newspaper said. His former loyalist, Mangala Samaraweera, was stripped of the foreign ministry portfolio in Sunday’s shake-up after he campaigned against accepting the defectors and warned that the move could lead to more instability.

With no political move on the horizon, analysts and diplomats fear Sri Lanka’s “undeclared war” will only escalate.—AFP