COLOMBO: The newly elected Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, invited on Sunday all political parties in parliament to join an all-party government stating that he would transfer the “unlimited” powers of the executive presidency to parliament, cabinet and the judiciary.

President Sirisena’s expectation of a “national government” is to bring about radical constitutional changes such as the abolition of, or radical modification of, the executive presidency and the re-establishment of the Independent Commission to oversee the functioning of the civil service, judiciary, police and the Election Commission.

But to usher in these changes, he will need a two-thirds majority in parliament which he presently lacks.

One way of getting a two-thirds majority is to form a national or an all-party government while the other two alternatives are to get defections from the opposite camp or to dissolve parliament and seek a mandate for such radical changes. The last option will be the final recourse.

However a sufficient number of MPs would defect from the Rajapaksa camp by January 19 when parliament is to meet, the president’s campaign manager Mangala Samaraweera said.

“President Sirisena will prove his majority on the 19th,” Samaraweera told reporters here on Sunday.

Meanwhile, several MPs belonging to the Rajapaksa (former president) faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) crossed over to the Sirisena faction, as two rival party central committees met to claim ownership of the party.

According to a count at President Sirisena’s residence, eight MPs crossed over on Sunday in addition to the 27 who had defected earlier. Among those who crossed over were office-holders like North Western Province Chief Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara.

President Sirisena faction’ s Cen­tral Committee appointed Maith­ripala Sirisena as the President of the SLFP and Mahinda Rajapaksa and Chandrika Kumaratunga as patrons of the party.

According to the SLFP constitution, if a party member becomes the president of Sri Lanka, he or she automatically becomes the president of the party. And party members who are past presidents of Sri Lanka automatically become patrons of the party.

AFP adds COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s new government on Sunday accused toppled strongman Mahinda In a related development, a top aide to President Srisena accused Mr Rajapaksa of having tried to stage a coup to cling to power after losing last week’s presidential election.

He said that Mr Rajapaksa had in fact tried to persuade the army and police chiefs to help him stay in office with the use of force.

“People think it was a peaceful transition. It was anything but,” Mangala Samaraweera, who is expected to be named as Sirisena’s foreign minister, told a press conference.

“The first thing the new cabinet will investigate is the coup and conspiracy by president Rajapaksa. He stepped down only when the army chief and the police Inspector General (N.K. Illangakoon) refused to go along with him.”

Illangakoon was “very vocal and did not want to be a party to this coup” while army chief Daya Ratnayake also refused to deploy troops for Rajapaksa to hold onto power, said Mr Samaraweera.

The head of the army was not immediately available for comment, but military spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya said he was “not aware of such a coup attempt”.

Mr Samaraweera said it was important for the new administration to disclose what had happened while results were being released, and an independent investigation probe would be a priority.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2015

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