COLOMBO: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe cruised to a comfortable victory, defeating the no-confidence motion (NCM) brought against him by the Joint Opposition of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Following the parliamentary debate throughout the day, the voting took place at 9.30 pm on Wednesday and which saw 122 members voting against the NCM, 76 voting in favour of it and 26 members absent. The house has a total strength of 225 members, including the speaker.

Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) had taken a unanimous decision to defeat the NCM while the Tamil National Alliance, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, the Tamil Progressive Alliance and the Jathika Hela Urumaya voted against the NCM. The SLFP, a partner in the UNP-led coalition regime, was divided.

Just prior to the debate commencing on Wednesday morning, State Minister and senior SLFP leader A. H. M. Fowzie told the media that the SLFP had decided to abstain from voting, only to be contradicted minutes later by fellow SLFP member and Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, who told journalists that the SLFP MPs had decided to vote in favour of the NCM.

Meanwhile, the Marxist JVP had announced before the voting that they would vote for the NCM.

Wickremesinghe was thought to be the loser in this game, as the alliance partner, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by President Maithripala Sirisena, was pressuring him to resign and prevent the NCM from getting through in parliament.

Fears of Wickremesinghe being unable to defeat the NCM were real as a significant section of his party was dissatisfied by his leadership and wanting a replacement.

On April 3, Wickremesinghe promised sweeping reforms in leadership by April 8 and had got the UNP to come to a unanimous decision to stand by him in parliament on the April 4 debate and voting.

Throughout his ordeal lasting weeks, Wickremesinghe was adamant in his refusal to quit saying that he had the support of the majority both in the UNP, and the alliance United National Front (UNF) to which the UNP belonged. He was confident that the UNP-led UNF was the single largest group in parliament.

As per the expectation of Wickremesinghe, all the 106 members of the UNP-led UNF voted for him along with the Tamil National Alliance enabling him to get 122 votes.

Meanwhile, the joint opposition of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the architects of the NCM, got only 76 votes although they should have got at least 95 or even 101.

There was cross voting across party lines as many MPs, including Ministers, of the SLFP voted with for the NCM, but more MPs of the SLFP voted against it, supporting the Prime Minister.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2018